Knutsen NYK Carbon Carrier Tapped for Western Australia Carbon

Australian oil and gas company Pilot Energy Limited has signed an agreement with Knutsen NYK Carbon Carriers AS (KNCC), an international CO2 marine transportation and storage solution provider, for the transportation and offshore injection of liquified CO2 at the Cliff Head CCS Project in Western Australia.

The Cliff Head project seeks to eliminate around 8 million tonnes per year of CO2 emissions from the Western Australian Kwinana Industrial Area. Under the agreement, KNCC will utilize its propriety Liquefied CO2-Elevated Pressure (LCO2-EP) technology to transport captured CO2 emissions from the Kwinana Industrial Area for injection and permanent storage at the Cliff Head CCS Project site.

The project will convert the operating Cliff Head offshore oil field into a permanent CO2 storage site capable of storing over one million metric tons per annum (mmtpa) of CO2 on a continuous basis through 2050, with over 50 million tonnes of potential total storage capacity. The project is a integral component of the Mid West Clean Energy project, which aims to produce over 1.2 mmtpa of low cost, clean ammonia for export with approximately 99% carbon capture.

KNCC is a Norwegian joint venture company owned by the Knutsen Group of Norway and NYK Group of Japan. The company is focused on the technical and commercial development of a liquefied CO2 marine transportation and storage business worldwide using its propriety containment system technology, known as LCO2-EP, which allows transport of liquified CO2 at ambient temperatures. LCO2-EP has been granted the General Approval for Ship Application (‘GASA’) by class society DNV, enabling KNCC to order vessels using this technology once the commercial and financial terms are agreed for the whole CCS value chain of Pilot’s Cliff Head CCS Project.

During the initial 3-year term of the agreement, Pilot and KNCC will assess the technical and commercial solution to initially target the provision of a CO2 transportation service to emitters based in the Western Australian Kwinana Industrial Area. Each party will bear its own costs.

“KNCC’s innovative LCO2-EP containment system for the transportation of liquefied CO2 at ambient temperatures is an ideal solution to efficiently transport captured CO2 emissions from the Kwinana Industrial Area and provide a low-cost direct offshore CO2 unloading and injection system for permanent storage in the Cliff Head CCS Project,” said Brad Lingo, Pilot’s Chairman.

“With the agreement in place we are excited to work with Pilot, which is targeting to transport and store CO2 at ambient temperature. We will contribute to Cliff Head CCS Project’s realization by utilizing our cost-efficient, flexible, and scalable LCO2-EP technology to transport the LCO2 in ambient temperature and inject to the CO2 reservoirs offshore from our CO2 carriers,” said Anders Lepsøe, CEO of KNCC.