SUSTAINABLE PORT AWARD

Port of Antwerp-Bruges is the economic engine of Flanders. It wants to make that engine sustainable. This way, future generations will also enjoy the prosperity and many jobs created by the port. That is why it is committed to sustainable growth, in which economy, climate and people are central. To add weight to this ambition and to highlight the initiatives of the many port companies in this respect, every two years the port presents the Sustainable Port Award. The award is organized by Port of Antwerp-Bruges, Alfaport-Voka, Maatschappij Linkeroeverschelde and Apzi-Voka.

Winning project : CCUS Shipping by Victrol

In the fight against global warming, CCUS is generally recognized as one of the emerging technologies that will need to be rapidly deployed.
CCUS stands for Carbon Capture, Utilization and Storage.

The infrastructure gap is seen as one of the challenges in the CCUS dialogue.
Capturing, transporting, and storing CO2 should be dealt with as fully complementary services. Hence without infrastructure there is no value chain. Certainly when it comes to more remote areas that want to capture and ship there CO2, the infrastructure gap gets even more complex compared to seaport areas.

Thanks to its many years of experience in shipping, Victrol has added a new modality to the logistic CO2 value chain: inland CO2 barges. The CO2, captured, purified and liquefied by industries in the European hinterland can easily be transported by inland barges via rivers and canals to the European seaports, such as Rotterdam or Antwerp. From there, the CO2 can be further transported via seagoing vessels to permanent storage locations.

By using inland ships a safe, flexible, scalable, competitive and cross border corridor can be established on a relatively short notice, enabling remotely located emitting industries to be connected to the bigger CO2 hubs for further dispersion to utilization or sequestration locations.

Since years Victrol is developing low draft and low air draft barges that optimize the loadable capacity, which is a key element in inland shipping as it is bound to waterway restrictions, determined by fluctuating water levels, seasonality or summer draughts, dimensions of locks and heights of bridges.
Hence together with the aimed customers a full project assessments are performed including optimizing barging concepts. Different barge designs and dimensions are developed, serving multiple European waterway regions.

Advantages of using barges

• Remotely located industries can efficiently be connected to CO2 hubs in the European port areas,
  For instance South of Belgium to Antwerp, Rhine industries to Rotterdam, North-Germany to Hamburg, ….
• Barges are to be seen as cross boarder infrastructure
• Barges are connecting in a safe, certified, flexible and non-permanent way
• Barges have relatively short lead times, enabling remotely located industries to be connected to CO2 hubs as of 2026
• The barging concept is not selective to the origin nor the destination of the CO2. Both CCS and CCU markets can be served
• Barges are fit-to-purpose, reproductible and easily scalable: in a bilateral dialogue with the customer an optimized barge design is obtained, taking into account the needs of the customer