FAQ

Porthos offers companies the opportunity to reduce their CO₂ emissions during the period in which they have not yet made the transition to biobased, renewable or circular. This enables companies to contribute to the Netherlands’ climate objectives and to the energy transition, even if the alternatives are still not sufficiently available or developed.

CCUS can be introduced more quickly than, for instance, the electrification of industrial processes or the use of ‘green’ hydrogen as energy source. CCUS is also a more inexpensive measure than for example switching homes from natural gas or driving electric. The long-term objective continues to be the sustainability of production processes.

The pipeline on land will be laid in the existing pipeline strip along the A15 motorway, via Botlek-Vondelingenplaat up to Maasvlakte. The pipeline on land will be approximately 30 km.

A pipeline will also be laid beneath the North Sea seabed to an empty gas field some 20-25 km off the coast.

Porthos is focusing on the transport and storage of CO₂ in empty gas fields P18-2, P18-4 and P18-6.

TAQA has extracted gas from these fields, and the fields are available for storage. The existing P18A platform operated by TAQA can be used for the injection of CO₂.

Porthos is currently working on the permit procedures and technical details.

Porthos expects to take a final investment decision in 2023. As soon as the investment decision has been taken, the construction of the infrastructure will start. The system is expected to be operational by 2026.

Click here for more information about the current activities and timeline.

In December 2021, Air Liquide, Air Products, ExxonMobil and Shell signed the final contracts with Porthos for the transport and storage of CO₂.

From 2026, the companies will capture a combined 2.5 Mton of CO₂ annually from their installations in Rotterdam and supply it to the Porthos infrastructure.

Click here for more information about the commercial process.

Porthos is obtaining financial support for the costs made in preparing the project and for the infrastructure investment. Various funds are available and will be examined, including funds from the national government and the European Union.

For the preparatory studies, Porthos received a grant of € 1.2 million from RVO (Netherlands Enterprise Agency) in 2018 and a grant of € 6.5 million from the European Commission in 2019. In 2021, Porthos received a subsidy of € 102 million from Brussels for the realization of the infrastructure.

The Porthos customers were granted SDE++ subsidy in the spring of 2021. The SDE++ subsidy is necessary to bridge the difference in costs for ETS and the total costs for capture, transport and storage of CO₂. This helps the companies to remain competitive while contributing to achieving the Dutch Climate Agreement objectives.

Across the world, there’s over 20 years of experience with CCS. What makes Porthos special is that it is one of the first CCUS projects to focus on the storage of CO₂ from multiple companies and to use an open access approach. The system will be established as a kind of utility infrastructure for use by various companies. This means that considerable cost advantages can be obtained compared with stand-alone projects.

In contrast to the ROAD project (Rotterdam Storage and Capture Demonstration Project), Porthos is focusing on the industries that at the moment have no sustainable alternatives, such as oil refineries and the chemical sector. Another important difference is that storage in the Porthos project takes place exclusively offshore and not on land beneath existing buildings.