Chinese and Norwegian Companies Collaborate on Climate Mitigation Effort

Beijing June 9: TCM today signed a four-party Memorandum of Understanding to further progress carbon capture (CCS) collaboration between Norwegian and Chinese companies.

TCM has already signed a formal collaboration agreement with the UK-China (Guangdong) CCUS Centre (GDCCUSC) and the four-party MoU paved the the way for an even broader collaboration between two countries heavily involved in carbon capture as a critical climate mitigation tool.

-The work carried out at Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM) to test, verify and demonstrate CO2 capture technologies in a large scale format is a key element in our CCS strategy. Cooperation is the only way to facilitate a broad global dissemination and deployment of CCS technologies. Therefore I highly appreciate the cooperation between TCM and Guangdong project, says Norways Minister of Petroleum and Energy.

The Guangdong Offshore CCUS demonstration project (GOCCUS) phase I will be based on the coal-fired units of CRP Group (China Resources Power) Haifeng Plant. The demonstration project will be built in the country’s first multi-technology open platform of international carbon capture technologies, and also the first middle-scale CCUS testing and demonstration project in South China. In stage II, a large-scale CCUS demonstration project will be designed and constructed based on unit 3 and unit 4 of the plant, with capacity of 1 million tons captured per annum.

TCMs genuine knowledge and competence accumulated through the years of planning, construction and operations is in global demand, and TCM now offers sharing this experience more broadly. TCM is now expanding its role a global competence center by entering into collaboration agreements with relevant companies and institutions in Norway and abroad.

The collaboration with GDCCUSC may include themes related to emissions, measurements, permits and authority dialogue; flue gas composition vs capture processes, test campaign designs, analytical methods and analysis, plant design, operational experience, open source data and baselines and training of operators. The collaboration may in the future bring technology vendors from Guangdong test center to TCM as the last step before scale-up.

Managing Director of TCM Roy Vardheim emphasizes that such experience transfer is of course limited to information that can be released to others and that the competency and experience shared will not conflict with TCM's role as independent and neutral tests for technology providers.

"TCM emphasizes that we do not want to be an advisor for large scale projects, but share our expertise, knowledge and experience where it’s relevant. At the same time, our primary tasks will still be testing of CO2 capture technology. This puts a limitation on our resource usage in this new area, "adds Vardheim.

Secretary General of the GDCCUSC and Director of Centre for Business and Climate Change at the University of Edinburgh Business School highlights the importance of China in achieving a rapid cost reduction for CCUS technologies and developing the GOCCUS project will ultimately prove the technical and economic feasibility of CCUS in achieving near zero emission fossil fuel.

“I am delighted TCM and Innovation Norway could provide in time support in developing China Resources Power Haifeng project. We have a lot to learn from the construction and operation experiences of TCM. The GOCCUS project team is keen to enhance collaboration with Norway and other international parties to jointly drive the CCUS development agenda forward and contribute to a major cost reduction”

The UN international panel on climate change (IPCC), the International Energy Agency (IEA) and other renowned organizations highlight carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a key technology pathway in climate mitigation and their reports indicate that it is very difficult and very expensive to achieve the 2C climate targets adopted in Paris Agreement in 2015 without adopting CCS.

TCM, the world’s largest CCS test center, has since its inauguration been working tirelessly in close collaboration with its owners and vendors and other partners to develop more efficient and more affordable capture technologies to be installed on power stations and industrial facilities worldwide. The ultimate goal is to prevent climate change caused by CO2-emissions.

The signing ceremony was witnessed by Mr Terje Soviknes, Minister of Petroleum and Energy in Nroway, Mr ZHANG Guobao, Chairman of Beijing Energy Club and Former Director of National Energy Administration in China, Mr SHI Dinghuan Former Secretary General of Ministry of Sciences and Technology in China, Ms LI Liyan from the Head of Strategy at the Department of Climate Change at National Development and Reform Commission in China.