The facility, which will have the capacity to hold approximately 2,500t of liquid CO2 for the food and drinks industry across Ireland, aims to significantly improve security of supply for the gas on both sides of Ireland’s border. Gerard Dore, commercial manager at Nippon Gases, said that as there is no significant native source of liquid CO2, the gas is currently imported by industrial gas companies into Ireland daily via road tankers coming across the Irish Sea.
Mr Dore said: “It is worth noting that one ship will be the equivalent of 90 road tankers coming across the Irish Sea. The carbon footprint reduction is very large.
“In addition we are also linking in with the more abundant CO2 source region of continental Europe, namely Netherlands. This is important as the British Isles currently do not produce sufficient quantities of CO2 for their annual usage.”
Operational in 2020
Work on the construction of the terminal is due to commence this summer. The terminal is expected to become operational in Q2 2020.
The establishment of the facility follows a major shortage of CO2 in Ireland and the UK during summer 2018.
