China’s Dalian shipyard begins work on third liquefied carbon dioxide carrier
- Dalian Shipbuilding receives order from Northern Lights, which is developing the world’s first cross-border carbon dioxide transport and storage infrastructure
- The world needs to capture and store some 8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 to hit the net zero greenhouse gas emissions target
Dalian Shipbuilding Industry (DSI), a unit of one of China’s biggest shipbuilding conglomerates, has commenced the construction of a third specialist vessel ordered by Northern Lights, which will transport liquefied carbon dioxide from emitters to sites for permanent geological storage.
Northern Lights is developing the world’s first cross-border carbon dioxide transport and storage infrastructure and has ordered four such vessels from DSI’s subsidiary Dalian Shipbuilding Offshore (DSO).
“It will be deployed to extract industrial emissions as part of Europe’s carbon capture and storage plan for achieving its medium term decarbonisation goal,” the shipbuilder said. “The gas will be sent to a receiving terminal on the west coast of Norway, treated and injected some 2,600 metres under the sea floor for permanent storage.”
DSI is a unit of Shanghai-listed China Shipbuilding Industry. China has the world’s largest shipbuilding industry. Northern Lights is a joint venture founded in 2021 by Norway’s state-controlled energy firm Equinor, British multinational oil and gas company Shell and France’s TotalEnergies.
The world needs to capture and store some 6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions at factories or directly from the atmosphere by 2040, and 8 billion tonnes by 2050, to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
