Shell has signed a memorandum of understanding with China Petrochemical Corp, China Baowu Steel Group Corp, and BASF to explore the feasibility of developing an open-source carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) project in the East China region, the company said on Friday.

An open-source project can offer industrial companies in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River contractual opportunities to capture and store their carbon dioxide emissions, it said.

The four parties intend to conduct a joint study to assess the technical solutions and develop a commercial model for the project. The study will also explore how to establish high-integrity and verified low-carbon product supply chains and propose enabling policies. If successful, it will be China's first large-scale open-source CCUS project with a potential capacity of tens of million tons of carbon dioxide per year, said Shell.

"Carbon capture and storage (CCS) offers a way to reduce emissions in hard-to-abate sectors and we are actively exploring such opportunities with our partners," said Huibert Vigeveno, Shell's Downstream Director.

He added, "This project is also in line with Shell's strategic approach to provide decarbonization solutions to individual market sectors, as well as our ambition of having access to at least 25 million tons a year of CCS capacity by 2035."

The project is expected to lead to the capture of carbon dioxide emissions from industrial companies in the East China region. These emissions could then be shipped to a receiving terminal on carbon dioxide carrier ships, before being transported to onshore and offshore storage sites through short pipelines, said Shell.

zhengxin@chinadaily.com.cn