Egypt and Italy's Eni to develop $25m carbon capture and storage project

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Wednesday - 4 May 2022

Egypt and Italian energy company Eni plan to develop a project to capture and store carbon dioxide in the Meleiha field as the North African country moves to reduce emissions.

The project, which will entail an investment of $25 million, will capture and store between 25,000 and 30,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, said Tarek El Molla, Egypt’s Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, according to UAE state news agency Wam.

The minister did not mention when the project would be completed.

Carbon capture, and storage refers to a method where carbon dioxide is captured from industrial sources or directly from the atmosphere and is compressed and transported to be used elsewhere or injected into deep geological formation, according to the International Energy Agency.

The project is unveiled as the Arab region’s most populous country prepares to host the UN’s Cop27 climate change conference and summit in Sharm El Sheikh in November this year. The UAE will host the Cop28 summit in 2023.

Egypt accounts for only 0.6 per cent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions, Minister of Environment Yasmine Fouad said at a petroleum conference in Cairo in February this year.

Removing carbon will be crucial to achieving the Paris Agreement’s goal of capping the rise in global temperatures at 1.5°C or 2°C above pre-industrial levels, according to energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie. About 1.8 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent over the next 30 years need to be actively removed to reach the mandated 1.5°C target, the consultancy said.

Globally, about 33 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide were emitted in 2019. Carbon capture and storage projects across the world are able to capture only a fraction of the emissions, at about 40 million tonnes annually.