Carbon Destroyer 1 – Europe’s First Liquefied CO₂ Carrier Prepares for Service
Carbon Destroyer 1, Europe’s first liquefied CO₂ carrier, was launched at the Royal Niestern Sander shipyard in the Netherlands. Designed for commercial CCS operations within the Greensand Future project, the vessel can transport approximately 5,000 tons of liquefied CO₂.
The ship will operate between the port of Esbjerg in Denmark and the Nini West offshore platform, a depleted oil field in the Danish North Sea, where the captured carbon will be stored more than 1,800 meters beneath the seabed.
Led by INEOS, the Greensand project made history in March 2023 as the first to transport CO₂ across international borders and successfully completed a pilot injection of CO₂ beneath the seabed.
Carbon Destroyer 1 is based on the EasyMax Shortsea bulk carrier design by Royal Wagenborg and specially adapted to handle CO₂ under pressure and at low temperatures. The vessel measures 149.95 meters in length, 15.9 meters in width, and has a draft of 8.6 meters, enabling increased cargo capacity while requiring less engine power for improved efficiency.
Project highlights:
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Capacity: up to 5,000 tons of liquefied CO₂
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Route: between Denmark and the Danish North Sea
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Storage depth: over 1,800 meters under the seabed
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Expected operational start: late 2025 to early 2026
Mads Weng Gade, CEO of INEOS Energy Europe, emphasized that Carbon Destroyer 1 will create a “virtual pipeline” linking CO₂ capture sites across Europe with permanent underground storage in the North Sea, marking a significant step toward Europe’s carbon-neutral future.
The Greensand project plans to begin commercial operations by the end of 2025 with an initial storage capacity of 400,000 tons of CO₂ per year, with the potential to scale up to 8 million tons by 2030.
