The EU Commission recently announced it will grant Air Liquide (AL), Fluxys Belgium and Port of Antwerp-Bruges €144.6 million.

The funding is earmarked for the construction of shared CO₂transport and export facilities on the Antwerp port platform. The grant award is a major step towards the final investment decision, expected in 2023.

The project, named ‘Antwerp@C CO₂ Export Hub’, is set up as an open-access infrastructure to transport, liquefy and load CO₂onto ships for onward permanent offshore storage. The Hub will have an initial export capacity of 2.5 million tonnes per annum (Mtpa), with the ambition to reach up to 10 Mtpa by 2030.

They want to halve the CO₂emissions in the Antwerp port area by 2030. In this first phase, AL and BASF will be the launching customers.