With Project ONE, INEOS is building a ground-breaking steam cracker in Antwerp. We’re raising the bar by lowering CO2 emissions.
To put this into perspective, we need to look at the European system of buying emissions rights. This was introduced to lower CO2 emissions and combat global warming.
The system encourages the most energy-intensive industries to reduce their emissions. There is a ceiling, which determines how much all companies together are allowed to emit each year. And that ceiling is lowered over the years, so that the total emissions decrease as well.
The emission rights trading system works with separate metrics for each industry. There’s also a benchmark for steam crackers: those who emit that amount or less are rewarded. However, those who fail to meet the benchmark must pay additional emission rights or invest more in sustainable measures.
When we compare Project ONE with other installations, we see that our steam cracker – with its very low carbon footprint per ton of product – performs much better in its category:
- The top 10% of the steam crackers today emit 2 times as much as Project ONE;
- The average steam crackers in Europe emit 3 times as much;
- And the worst steam crackers emit even 5 times as much.
What does that mean for INEOS’s customers? When they use ethylene from Project ONE, their carbon footprint will reduce by more than 2 million tons per year. That’s equal to the annual emissions of no less than 1.6 million cars.
And that’s not all. Because Project ONE’s emissions are so low, the current benchmark will be set about 15% lower.
Which will put pressure on all other steam crackers: they will have to reduce their emissions or buy additional emission rights.
In this way, Project ONE is ensuring that all steam crackers become more climate-friendly.