Project Greensand receives €26 million funding award for offshore CCS in the Danish North Sea

• Funding will support preparation of safe, reliable CO₂ storage under the Danish North Sea
• CCS essential for delivering climate goals in Denmark and in Europe

On Wednesday 8 December, the Danish Energy Agency announced an award of 197 million DKK (26 million Euro) to the Project Greensand CCS consortium. The funding will support preparation of CO₂ storage in the Danish North Sea.

Wintershall Dea is a leading member of the consortium alongside INEOS Oil and Gas Denmark and almost 30 other organisations.

Wintershall Dea’s Chief Technology Officer, Hugo Dijkgraaf, said: “We warmly welcome the trust and  funding support from the Danish Government, which recognises that CCS is essential for delivering climate goals in Denmark and Europe. With CCS we can safely store unavoidable industrial emissions, enabling a clean and successful future for European industry. Wintershall Dea is proud to be driving this promising project forward.” 

Project Greensand aims to store CO₂ in the Siri Area of the Danish North Sea where Wintershall Dea has been active for many years. A pilot phase targets first injection from late 2022. Subject to progress, the consortium aims for full-scale CO₂ storage from 2025 onwards. The project could ultimately have total storage potential of up to eight million tonnes of CO₂ per year. This means that the project could potentially deliver all the CO₂ storage envisaged in the Danish Climate Programme.

There is broad-based political support for CCS in Denmark. This week’s funding award follows a decision by the Danish Government and a broad majority of political parties to allocate significant funding for the development and demonstration of CO₂ storage in the North Sea.

For Wintershall Dea, Project Greensand is one of a number of projects delivering the company’s Energy Transition Pathway. Klaus Langemann, Senior Vice President for Carbon Management and Hydrogen says: "In CCS we see an opportunity to take Wintershall Dea’s expertise – in the subsurface, for drilling and operating offshore – and apply it to the task of reducing industrial emissions. We look forward to working with our consortium partners to deliver Project Greensand.”

_{About Wintershall Dea}

_{Wintershall Dea is Europe’s leading independent natural gas and oil company with more than 120 years of experience as an operator and project partner along the entire E&P value chain. The company with German roots and headquarters in Kassel and Hamburg explores for and produces gas and oil in 13 countries worldwide in an efficient and responsible manner. With activities in Europe, Russia, Latin America and the MENA region (Middle East & North Africa), Wintershall Dea has a global upstream portfolio and, with its participation in natural gas transport, is also active in the midstream business. More in our Annual Report.}

_{As a European gas and oil company, we support the EU's 2050 carbon neutrality target. As our contribution we have set ourselves ambitious targets: We want to be net zero across our entire upstream operations – both operated and non-operated – by 2030. This includes Scope 1 (direct) and Scope 2 (indirect) greenhouse gas emissions on an equity share basis. In addition Wintershall Dea will bring methane emissions intensity below 0.1 per cent by 2025 and maintain zero routine flaring of associated gas in its operations. The climate goals are to be achieved through portfolio optimization, emissions reduction through more energy efficiency, investments in nature-based compensation solutions and in future technologies such as hydrogen and CCS. You can find more about this in our Sustainability Report.}

_{Wintershall Dea was formed from the merger of Wintershall Holding GmbH and DEA Deutsche Erdoel AG, in 2019. Today, the company employs around 2,500 people worldwide from over 60 nations.}