Cost-effective balance between CO2 vessel and pipeline transport: Part II – Design of multimodal CO2 transport: The case of the West Mediterranean region ☆

Abstract As part of large scale application of CO 2 capture and storage, million tons CO 2 per year have to be transported by pipelines and/or vessels from capture to storage sites. In previous studies, costs of, pipeline systems and point-to-point vessel connections have been estimated. In this research, these cost analysis are supplemented by adding a transport system combining vessel and pipeline transport. The cost savings potential of this multimodal CO 2 transport system has been analyzed for the West Mediterranean region (i.e. Spain, Portugal, and Morocco) – where vessel transport can play an important role. In detail: A multimodal extended adaption of a pipeline system optimization model has been defined and was then parameterized adapting a nonlinear vessel and pipeline transport cost model. Next, cost savings due to vessel transport were quantified for the West Mediterranean region. When CO 2 emissions are stored in the region itself, cost could be lowered by up to 20% on routes with low transport volumes and in a complementary way by a redirection of flows at the expense of longer transport distances to prevent costly offshore storage. In case of a European CO 2 transport infrastructure including North Sea storage, transport of CO 2 by vessel could be profitable if CO 2 is used for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). However, North Sea neighboring countries can be expected to crowd out Iberian CO 2 of the market for EOR storage volumes.