By Abbas Nazil
Sweden has approved state funding to support the development of the Malmö CO2 Hub, a strategic carbon capture and storage infrastructure project designed to create shared logistics capacity and anchor an emerging carbon management network in southern Sweden.
Through the Industriklivet programme, the Swedish Energy Agency allocated SEK 31 million, equivalent to approximately $3.4 million, to Nordion Energi to advance the project into its investment preparation phase and move closer to implementation.
The initiative aims to establish the country’s first open-access system for handling liquefied carbon dioxide by providing intermediate storage and coordinated transport to permanent geological storage sites.
Project developers explained that the hub will address a key bottleneck in scaling carbon capture projects, namely the absence of cost-efficient infrastructure that enables multiple industrial emitters to share transport and storage facilities.
By pooling captured volumes from different sectors, including waste-to-energy plants and biogenic carbon dioxide sources, the facility is expected to improve operational efficiency, reduce unit costs and lower investment risks for participating industries.
Located at the Port of Malmö, the planned hub is designed with an initial capacity of around 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year and includes expansion potential as demand for storage services increases before its expected operational launch by 2030.
Officials highlighted that the project contributes to building a complete value chain for biogenic carbon capture and storage while strengthening industrial competitiveness and supporting national climate targets.
The concept originated through regional collaboration under the CNETSS initiative, which explored how southern Sweden could develop missing infrastructure links between capture sites and permanent storage solutions.
Several partners from that collaboration, including municipal waste management operator Sysav, are aligning their carbon capture ambitions with the shared infrastructure model to enable negative emissions from waste streams.
Sysav’s SkyZero project in Malmö aims to capture biogenic carbon dioxide from municipal waste processing, relying on the hub as a critical component for efficient transport and long-term storage.
Funding support under the Industriklivet programme forms part of broader European recovery and resilience mechanisms designed to accelerate clean technology deployment and industrial decarbonisation.
If the project reaches final investment decision, the Malmö CO2 Hub could become a cornerstone asset in Sweden’s carbon capture ecosystem, providing foundational infrastructure that supports multiple emitters and encourages wider adoption of CCS technologies.
Industry observers note that establishing shared logistics platforms significantly reduces barriers to entry for smaller industrial operators while enabling faster deployment of scalable carbon removal solutions.
