Bulgaria/Poland: The EU Innovation Fund has awarded funding to Devnya Cement’s ANRAV carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) project in Bulgaria and Lafarge Polska’s Go4ECOPlanet CCUS project in Poland.

ANRAV is a full-chain CCUS project connecting Devnya Cement’s Devnya cement plant in Varna Province over 30km to the Black Sea for storage. Go4ECOPlanet applies a similar model to the capture and storage of CO₂ from Lafarge Polska’s Kujawy cement plant offshore in the North Sea. The Kujawy cement plant is situated 200km inland in Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship. The plan is part of Lafarge Polska’s strategy to realise carbon neutrality at the Kujawy cement plant by 2027.

Regarding the ANRAV project, Mihail Polendakov, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania managing director at Devnya Cement’s parent company HeidelbergCement said “Our vision in the ANRAV consortium is to realise an economically viable CCUS cluster for Bulgaria and the neighbouring regions.” He continued “Subject to regulatory and permissions aspects, it could start operation as early as 2028, with a capture capacity of 800,000t/yr of CO₂.