German connection to Dutch carbon storage project to see years' long delay – media report

A project that would connect Germany's Rhine-Ruhr industrial heartland to an undersea carbon storage project in the Dutch North Sea is set to be delayed by years, threatening a key part of the country's decarbonization plans, reports Die Welt. Construction on the Porthos, a billion-euro mega project in Rotterdam port to store carbon from heavy industry, officially began Monday. But the planned Delta Rhine corridor pipeline that Germany would use to import hydrogen and pump CO2  the opposite direction to be permanently stored in depleted gas fields 20 kilometres off the coast won't be operational until at least 2032, four years later than planned. German pipeline operator OGE is working with chemical giant BASF, Shell and Gasunie on the corridor. Die Welt reports that the technical complexity, planning and approval procedures had been "underestimated". Rotterdam's port director Boudewijn Siemons called the delay a "threat to the greening of important industries".  

Dutch energy companies EBN and Gasunie and the port operator of Rotterdam want to inject 2.5 million tons of captured CO2 a year at the site from 2026. The carbon capture and storage (CCS) project is part of an EU-wide push to establish a CCS industry to help the bloc reach net-zero. Sectors with emissions that are difficult to cut in the short-term such as cement and steel manufacture are betting on CCS to help reach their climate targets. In May, Germany introduced a draft law that would allow offshore CO2 storage and, if the federal states choose to do so, some onshore storage in the country. If passed, this would end the current ban on carbon storage in Germany. Germany is also planning to storage CO2 in Denmark and Norway.