Overseas Shipholding Group, a leading provider of energy transportation services, has been awarded a $3,000,000 grant from the United States Department of Energy for the engineering and design of a new vessel that will transport liquified carbon dioxide (LCO2), according to the company’s release. The award will be used to develop the design of an articulated tug and barge unit (ATB) to be used to transport CO2 captured by emitters in the Greater Tampa Bay region and across the State of Florida to sequestration sites in the Gulf of Mexico.
The new vessel grant provides further resources towards the development of a complete CO2 storage and transport solution for industrial emitters in Florida. This grant follows the company’s announcement in December 2023 of an award by the Department of Energy of another grant for the development of OSG’s proposed Tampa Regional Intermodal Carbon Hub (T-RICH). The T-RICH grant funds a study led by OSG to develop an intermediate storage hub at Port Tampa Bay for captured CO2.
T-RICH would initially receive, store, and process two million metric tons of CO2 per year and could be scaled in the future to meet expanded volumes of captured CO2. The ATB which is the focus of the current grant would provide a marine transport solution for captured CO2 aggregated at the T-RICH hub terminal in Tampa, to be shipped in liquified form to developed, approved sequestration sites in the northern Gulf of Mexico region.
Overseas Shipholding Group, Inc. is a publicly traded company providing liquid bulk transportation services for crude oil and petroleum products in the U.S. Flag markets. OSG’s U.S. Flag fleet consists of Suezmax crude oil tankers, conventional and lightering ATBs, shuttle and conventional MR tankers, and non-Jones Act MR tankers that participate in the U.S. Tanker Security Program.