Decarbonising industry

The GoCO₂ project was launched in July 2023 and is designed to develop an investment programme for capturing residual CO₂ from industrial sites, then transporting it via pipeline to dedicated sites that use CO₂ or via the Saint-Nazaire maritime export terminal so it can be distributed to permanent geological storage zones.  The project will have an estimated capacity of between 2.6 million and 4 million tonnes annually by 2030.

On Monday 11 March, GRTgaz launched a call for manifestations of interest across the Greater Western region so as to investigate the development, construction and operation of special infrastructure for transporting CO₂, for use by all market stakeholders.

This call for manifestations of interest will run until 11 April 2024 for all stakeholders concerned by this value chain: industrial players involved in CO₂ capture, stakeholders spearheading projects for developing CO₂ recovery plants, CO₂ storage operators and operators of terminals exporting CO₂ to overseas geological storage facilities. They are all invited to take part by expressing their interest via a dedicated questionnaire.
 
The process will be structured into two phases:

• an initial non-binding phase (this call for expressions of interest) to confirm requirements and enable the infrastructure that needs to be built to be studied;
• a second binding phase to contractually determine the use of the infrastructure with all of the interested stakeholders and decide on the corresponding investments.

Once needs have been collected at the end of this initial phase, GRTgaz will undertake a feasibility study if there is enough interest to warrant sizing the infrastructure and undertaking an initial assessment of its costs. A design agreement will be signed. This will ensure that any information shared is kept confidential and will specify the reciprocal contractual and financial commitments of the parties for the purposes of undertaking more in-depth infrastructure design studies.

Seamlessly integrated into the local ecosystem, GOCO₂  is able to utilise some of the existing infrastructure across the Grand Port Maritime Nantes Saint-Nazaire (the Greater Nantes Saint-Nazaire Maritime Port).

Eventually, it will be used to transport residual CO₂ emissions from other manufacturers across the Greater Western region, as well as biogenic CO₂ from purifying biomethane (among other things). It will also be an asset for attracting new industrial sites to the region, providing access to decarbonisation infrastructure. 

Launched in July 2023 by GRTgaz, Elengy, Heidelberg Materials, Lafarge, Lhoist and TotalEnergies, supported by the Pays de la Loire region and the Greater Nantes Saint-Nazaire Maritime Port, GOCO₂ is now the largest decarbonisation project in western France in terms of the volume of CO₂ captured and transported. Primarily located in the Pays de la Loire and Nouvelle-Aquitaine regions, it will eventually be able to transport and export up to 4 million tonnes of residual CO₂ per year by 2050 – equivalent to more than 75% of the Greater Western region's total industrial emissions. This project is in line with the France 2030 carbon capture, utilisation and sequestration strategy (France 2030), as well as with the ADEME's call for low-carbon industrial zone projects.

Manufacturers have several ways to decarbonise their processes: improve their energy efficiency, opt for low-carbon energy or upgrade their production processes.

Capturing industrial CO₂, and then transporting, using and storing it in appropriate geological formations is an additional solution that is essential if sectors continuing to emit residual CO₂ emissions – such as primary steel production and cement manufacture – are to achieve net zero.

GRTgaz is working on this value chain, developing, building and operating a CO₂ transmission network for connecting up industrial capture sites to storage sites and to future sites that will use CO₂ – ones that will convert CO₂ into fuel, synthetic methane and materials, for example.