Denmark awards $30 million grant to INEOS-led North Sea carbon storage project

(Reuters) - The Danish Energy Agency has awarded a 197 million Danish crown ($30 million) grant to the INEOS-led consortium backing the Greensand carbon capture storage project in the North Sea, INEOS said on Thursday.

The project would support Denmark's ambitions to cut carbon emissions by 70% by 2030, the company said in a statement.

Located off the coast of Denmark, Greensand has a storage potential of up to 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 a year from 2025 in depleted oil and gas fields, rising to up to 8 million tonnes a year by 2030.

INEOS, Europe's largest hydrogen producer, had said in October that it would invest more than 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion) on electrolysis plants to make zero-carbon green hydrogen across Europe.

The Danish energy agency also awarded another 75 million Danish crowns to Project Bifrost, led by TotalEnergie, which is projected to have capacity to store about 3 million tonnes of CO2 a year from 2027, potentially rising to 16 million tonnes in later years.

($1 = 6.5694 Danish crowns)

(Reporting by Asha Sistla in Bengaluru and Nora Buli in Oslo; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)