Ten carbon capture and storage projects reached final investment decision (FID) between December 2024 and October 2025, committing roughly 4 million tonnes of CO₂ per year in capture capacity and around 14 Mt per year of storage capacity across Europe. The figures come from the Clean Air Task Force's updated Carbon Capture Activity and Project Map, which tracks the gap between announced projects and bankable ones — a gap that remains wide.

The operating milestone of the year belongs to Norway. Heidelberg Materials' Brevik cement plant became the first industrial facility anywhere to capture CO₂ at scale and store it permanently through the Northern Lights project, completing Europe's first fully operational CCS value chain.

What reached FID

The 2024–2025 FID cohort spans the UK, Nordics, Belgium and Denmark. Net Zero Teesside Power (2 Mt capture, December 2024) and the Northern Endurance Partnership (4 Mt storage, December 2024) anchor the UK's East Coast Cluster, both backed by the government's £21.7 billion CCUS and hydrogen commitment. Within the HyNet North West cluster, Eni's Liverpool Bay transport and storage system (4.5 Mt initial storage, April 2025), Encyclis' Protos energy recovery facility (370,000 t capture, September 2025) and Heidelberg Materials' Padeswood cement works (800,000 t capture, September 2025) all cleared investment decisions.

In the Nordics, Stockholm Exergi's BECCS facility in Sweden (800,000 t capture, March 2025) combines an €180 million EU Innovation Fund grant, a €260 million European Investment Bank loan and a 10-year Microsoft offtake for 5.08 Mt of CO₂ removals. Hafslund Oslo Celsio's Klemetsrud waste-to-energy capture project (350,000 t, January 2025) draws on Norway's NOK 22 billion Longship programme plus a Microsoft agreement covering 1.1 Mt. Northern Lights Phase 2 (5 Mt storage, March 2025) pairs a €131 million Connecting Europe Facility grant with offtake contracts from both Scandinavian capture projects.

Project Greensand in Denmark took FID in December 2024 on 400,000 t of annual storage capacity, scalable to 8 Mt, supported by €41 million from the Innovation Fund and DKK 197 million from Denmark's EUDP. Fluxys' c-grid CO₂ backbone in Antwerp, one of Europe's first open-access CO₂ pipeline networks, started construction in May 2025 with a €25.8 million CEF-E grant under the €144.6 million Antwerp@C export hub.

The funding model behind nearly every deal

Blended finance — EU and national money plus corporate carbon dioxide removal offtakes — remains the prerequisite for investment readiness. Stockholm Exergi, Hafslund Oslo Celsio and Ørsted all reached FID on this model, with Microsoft providing long-term revenue certainty from the voluntary carbon market. The exceptions are few: Porthos and Yara Sluiskil in the Netherlands operate at relatively low capture costs, though both still receive national or EU support.

Geography is widening

CATF counts 37 proposed projects across Southern and Central & Eastern Europe, a shift away from the North Sea hub concentration. In Spain, TarraCO₂-Storage targets roughly 54 Mt of total storage capacity off Tarragona, injecting about 2 Mt per year, with Repsol receiving €205 million in EU support. Heidelberg Materials' Rezzato-Mazzano cement plant in Italy plans around 1 Mt per year of capture feeding the Ravenna hub. In Romania, Holcim's Carbon Hub CPT01 — selected under the 2024 Innovation Fund — will link the Câmpulung cement plant and a Carmeuse lime facility to onshore storage, producing 2 million tonnes of near-zero cement annually from 2032. Bulgaria has Beli Net Zero and Anrav; Slovakia's Engas CCS will convert a depleted gas field for emissions from the Duslo Šaľa chemical plant; Hungary's Danube Carbon Removals targets 0.5 Mt of biogenic CO₂ from the Pannonia Bio biorefinery.

New sectors are entering the pipeline. Marcegaglia's AdriatiCO₂ project in Italy will capture up to 112 kt per year from a steel plant into Ravenna, and Belgium's H₂BE will produce low-carbon hydrogen via autothermal reforming with CO₂ stored in the Norwegian North Sea.

The delivery gap

Policy deadlines frame the challenge. The Net-Zero Industry Act sets a binding 50 Mt per year EU injection capacity target for 2030, with obligations on 44 oil and gas producers to develop shared storage, and the Industrial Carbon Management Strategy raises the ambition to roughly 250 Mt across the EEA by 2040. An analysis by Cavanagh and Lockwood of 33 planned storage sites estimates 2030 injection capacity between 18 and 108 Mt per year, with a mid-range forecast near 60 Mt. The EU's own trajectory requires around 280 Mt captured annually by 2040 and 450 Mt by 2050 — far above current deployment.

Germany moved on the permitting bottleneck in November 2025, when the Bundestag classified CO₂ transport and storage as projects of overriding public interest and enabled offshore storage in the German North Sea, leaving onshore storage to state-level approval. In August, the Bundeskartellamt cleared pipeline cooperations between OGE and ONTRAS, and OGE and Fluxys.

The European Commission opened a public consultation on CO₂ markets and infrastructure legislation in October 2025, with the Industrial Accelerator Act expected in late 2025 and a proposed Industrial Decarbonisation Bank slated for 2026. Those instruments — and whether Article 23 penalties give the oil and gas storage obligation teeth — will decide whether the 2030 injection target stays within reach.