The Nemo Consept
Nemo has developed a concept for transportation and permanent storage of CO2 into offshore reservoirs that will reduce the investment costs significantly compared to other solutions.
The new concept for transportation and injection of large CO2 volumes directly from ship into offshore storage reservoirs, the Nemo concept, builds on competence and experience from more than 40 years of operations and technology development within production, offshore loading and transportation of crude oil on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS), as well as the more than 20 years of CO2 injection on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (Sleipner, Snøhvit).
A feasibility study was conducted during autumn/winter 2020/2021, supported by the governmental agency for innovation funding (Innovasjon Norge). The study concluded that the concept is feasible.
Based on the positive results from the feasibility study, an industry consortium comprising of leading companies on the different technology areas was formed during spring 2021 to develop a design of a full-scale ship. The study included a reservoir modelling study performed by NORCE Research to investigate and de-risk any issues related to batch (interval) injection as the CO2 will be injected in batches form the ships. The study shows that there are no show-stoppers to batch injection. The reservoir knowledge that has been gained enables Nemo to understand the key parameters that determines the injection rates that is the main parameter to optimize utilization of ship capacity.
The remaining equipment for the ship components were then designed to meet suitable reservoir conditions. The components were designed by our industry partners;
Rosenberg Worley AS on process design
Framo AS on pumps and pumping systems
Brevik Engineering AS on naval design
The Nemo concept is based on experience with oil shuttle tankers operating in the North Sea region. These ships are equipped with dynamic positioning and solutions for rapid connection to the storage tanks. The shuttling of oil has proven very reliable and robust with very high regularity and Nemo has incorporated the basic design into CO2 carriers and also included an injection facility to include direct injection of CO2 into the storage reservoirs.
The Nemo ships eliminates the need for large CAPEX investments in infrastructure such as intermediate storage terminals and offshore pipelines. The ships can serve different offshore reservoirs and can be operated in all waters. The concept also enables reuse of existing ships, which today transport crude oil from offshore fields to CO2 transportation at an attractive conversion cost.
A project to develop a solution for offshore loading from the ship to the injection well has been conducted by consortium supported by the CLIMIT program, administered by Gassnova. Solutions have been designed for both shallow and deep waters, for use with dynamic positioning and for a mooring solutions. The project partners are;
OneSubsea- SLB on the main offloading design
Brevik Engineering on ship connections and stability calculations
OMV with technical support on subsea system and wells
TotalEnergies as technical support and sponsor.
A new project to develop a control system from ship to subsea wells has received funding support by Gassnova through the CLIMIT program, which will be conducted with OneSubsea- SLB and Framo Engineering.
The offloading system complements the ship solution to handle CO2 from the loading site to the injection wells on the sea bottom.
