Published On : July 2026
Ship-based CO2 transport connects two very different worlds: heavy industrial process emitters on one end, and offshore geological storage or utilization sites on the other. This page maps the source industries generating the CO2 that moves by sea, and the storage and utilization destinations that ultimately receive it, providing a full application view of how this market is structured from source to sink.
Five industry categories account for the overwhelming majority of demand within the CO2 transport by ship market: cement and lime, steel and metallurgy, chemicals and petrochemicals, waste-to-energy and biomass facilities pursuing bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), and refining and LNG processing. These industries share a common characteristic that makes them natural candidates for ship-based CO2 transport: process emissions that are difficult or impossible to eliminate through electrification or fuel switching alone, combined with facility locations that are frequently coastal and distant from suitable geological storage.
The relative importance of each source industry varies significantly by region, reflecting differences in industrial structure. European CO2 shipping demand skews more heavily toward cement, waste-to-energy, and chemicals, mirroring the continent's industrial base, while Asia-Pacific demand includes a larger contribution from steel and refining, consistent with the region's heavier concentration of large-scale steel production and petroleum refining capacity.
It is worth noting what does not appear prominently on this list. Power generation, despite being a major source of global CO2 emissions overall, is a comparatively smaller driver of ship-based transport demand specifically, since many large power plants are better served by direct pipeline connections where geography allows, or are pursuing capture technology on a slower timeline than the five industries profiled here. Ship-based transport tends to matter most where an emitter's location, facility scale, or storage access makes pipeline connection impractical.
Cement and lime production generates CO2 through both fuel combustion and the chemical calcination process itself, meaning that even a fully renewable-powered cement plant would still emit substantial process CO2 that has no combustion-based mitigation pathway. This makes cement and lime one of the clearest cases for carbon capture as the primary decarbonization route, and it explains why cement producers were among the first industrial customers for early CCS shipping projects. Volumes from individual cement facilities are often well suited to small- and medium-scale CO2 carriers, particularly during a facility's initial phase of CCS participation.
Cement facilities are also frequently located in coastal or near-coastal industrial zones for reasons unrelated to CCS, including raw material access and finished product distribution logistics. This existing coastal positioning gives many cement producers a practical head start when evaluating ship-based CO2 transport relative to inland facilities that would first need to solve overland transport to a port before shipping becomes viable at all.
The capture-readiness of cement facilities also varies with plant age and configuration. Newer plants designed with capture integration in mind can incorporate CO2 handling infrastructure more efficiently than older facilities retrofitting capture equipment onto existing kiln configurations, a distinction that is increasingly relevant as cement producers plan multi-decade CCS participation rather than one-off pilot projects.
Steel and metallurgy production, particularly through conventional blast furnace routes, generates concentrated CO2 streams from both fuel combustion and the reduction chemistry used to convert iron ore into metallic iron. Integrated steel plants tend to produce CO2 in larger, more consistent volumes than many other industrial sources, making them attractive anchor customers for CCS projects seeking to secure a stable, high-volume baseline of shipping demand.
The steel sector's path to decarbonization involves a mix of approaches, including a gradual shift toward electric arc furnace and hydrogen-based reduction methods alongside carbon capture on existing blast furnace assets. This means CCS-linked shipping demand from steel producers is likely to be concentrated among facilities where a full technology transition is not near-term feasible, positioning ship-based CO2 transport as a bridge solution for a meaningful subset of global steel capacity rather than a universal industry-wide pathway.
Geographic concentration also shapes how steel-sector shipping demand develops. Large integrated steel plants tend to cluster in a relatively small number of coastal industrial regions, which means steel-linked CO2 shipping volumes are often more geographically concentrated than volumes from more dispersed source industries, favoring dedicated, repeat-route shipping arrangements over more flexible, spot-oriented capacity.
Chemicals and petrochemicals facilities generate CO2 across a range of production processes, from ammonia and hydrogen production to ethylene cracking and other high-temperature chemical conversions. Many of these processes already produce a relatively pure CO2 stream as a byproduct, which can reduce the capture and purification burden relative to more dilute combustion-flue-gas sources, making chemicals facilities comparatively attractive early movers for CCS shipping participation.
The petrochemical sector's global footprint, concentrated in large industrial clusters across Europe, the U.S. Gulf Coast, and parts of Asia, closely overlaps with regions already developing CO2 shipping infrastructure for other reasons, creating natural synergies between chemicals-sector decarbonization plans and the broader build-out of regional CO2 shipping capacity.
Ammonia production deserves particular mention within this category, since it is one of the few chemical processes where high-purity CO2 has historically had commercial value in its own right, for use in food-grade applications and other industrial processes. This existing commercial familiarity with CO2 handling and purification gives ammonia producers an operational head start relative to industries without a prior history of managing CO2 as anything other than a waste stream.
Waste-to-energy and biomass facilities pursuing bioenergy with carbon capture and storage occupy a distinct position within the application landscape, since capturing biogenic CO2 and permanently storing it can, under certain accounting frameworks, be treated as a net-negative emissions activity rather than simply an emissions-reduction one. This distinction has attracted significant policy attention and, in some jurisdictions, more favorable regulatory or incentive treatment than capture from purely fossil-based sources.
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MARKET SHIFT BECCS-linked CO2 shipping demand is growing faster than the broader source-industry average, reflecting the additional policy incentives available for negative-emissions pathways in several jurisdictions. This is shifting some early CCS shipping infrastructure investment toward waste-to-energy and biomass facility clusters that were not originally viewed as first-wave candidates. |
Refining and LNG processing facilities generate CO2 both from process heating requirements and, in the case of LNG, from the acid gas removal step that strips CO2 out of raw natural gas before liquefaction. Because many LNG and refining facilities are already located at major coastal export terminals with substantial existing marine logistics infrastructure, integrating CO2 shipping into their broader operational footprint can be comparatively straightforward relative to inland industrial sources building shipping access from scratch.
This sector's global geographic footprint, spanning the Middle East, North America, and Asia-Pacific, also means refining and LNG-linked CO2 shipping demand is more evenly distributed across regions than some of the other source industries, which tend to concentrate more heavily around specific European or Asian industrial clusters.
On the receiving end of the value chain, shipped CO2 flows to three broad destination types: offshore geological storage in saline aquifers or depleted oil and gas fields, onshore storage hubs, and carbon utilization pathways grouped under CCUS, including conversion into e-fuels or chemical feedstocks. The destination selected has a direct bearing on the shipping and handling model used, since offshore storage often relies on the offshore injection-linked transport model described in our value chain analysis, while onshore hubs generally interface with terminal-based discharge infrastructure.
Offshore geological storage currently represents the largest share of announced destination capacity globally, reflecting the scale of storage volume available in depleted North Sea hydrocarbon fields and similar formations elsewhere. Onshore storage hubs, while less prevalent, offer certain operational advantages including simpler monitoring access, and are more common in jurisdictions where suitable onshore geological formations exist and public acceptance considerations have been adequately addressed. Carbon utilization pathways remain the smallest destination category by volume today, but represent an area of active technical development as e-fuel and chemical feedstock applications for captured CO2 continue to mature.
Utilization pathways within CCUS are also evolving beyond early-stage e-fuel demonstration projects. Mineral carbonation, which permanently binds CO2 into stable construction materials, is gaining attention as a complementary destination in regions where geological storage capacity is limited or where public acceptance of underground storage remains a barrier, offering ship-based transport an additional class of destination beyond pure geological storage.