CO2 SHIPPING

With more industry stakeholders looking at different transportation options between capture sites and storage locations, liquid CO₂ carriers will become an important link in the value chain. Shipping offers safe, reliable and flexible CO₂ transportation well-suited to shorter distances and low to medium volumes.

Scaling up global CCS capacity will require a fleet of specialized tankers with the ability to collect CO₂ from capture sites operated by many different industrial segments, but at present there is no fleet of tankers that can efficiently transport high volumes of CO₂ over long distances.

Challenges include:

• Unlike natural gas, CO₂ must be pressurized to reach a liquid state
• For different CCS shipping applications and levels of scale, CO₂ may need to be shipped at different pressure levels, requiring the development of high-, medium- and low-pressure solutions
• Determining the most effective CO₂ shipping solution for each project depends on several factors, such as the amount of cargo set to be transported (per load and on an annual basis), the distance to the final storage, the concept and arrangement for offloading, and the levels of impurities and condition of the captured CO₂.

DNV is reducing the risks and uncertainties of CO₂ shipping

DNV continues to work with industry to explore alternatives for transporting CO₂ at both high and low pressures. Factors being considered include choice of material for the containment system, effect of impurities in the cargo, transport volumes, safety considerations, and achieving the optimal balance between cost and operational complexity.

Key services include:

• Technology qualification of new cargo containment systems
• Logistics and cost studies for CO₂ shipping
• Guidance and support tender process CO₂ carriers
• Classification of CO₂ carriers
• Design support of specialized tanks, piping and refrigeration systems for the transportation of liquified CO₂
• Consequence analysis of CO₂ leaks and dispersion by computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling.