Brocēni Carbon Capture Enters the EIA Stage: 800,000 Tonnes of CO₂, a 2028 Decision, and a Feedstock Question for Latvian Power-to-X
SCHWENK Latvija has opened the environmental impact assessment for a permanent carbon capture and liquefaction unit at its Brocēni cement plant, with the final investment decision now set for 2028 and operation around 2032. We look at what the shifted timeline says about carbon capture economics, why this permitting path matters for every hard-to-abate site in Latvia, and why 800,000 tonnes of unavoidable process CO₂ a year should be treated as Power-to-X feedstock rather than a waste stream to ship out.
NEWS
HydrogenLatvia
9/8/20266 min read
You know that moment when a project you've been watching for years finally files the paperwork that makes it real? That's where Brocēni is this week. SCHWENK Latvija, the country's only cement producer, has formally opened the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for a permanent carbon capture and liquefaction unit at its plant in Saldus municipality, and on 8 September it sits down with local residents at the Brocēni Culture Centre to explain what it wants to build. The headline number hasn't changed: roughly 800,000 tonnes of CO₂ captured every year. Two other numbers have, and those are the ones Latvian hydrogen ecosystem stakeholders should read carefully.
A permanent capture unit enters the permitting phase
Here's what SCHWENK has put on the table. The EIA, carried out by SIA Estonian, Latvian & Lithuanian Environment (ELLE) under the supervision of the State Environmental Service, is expected to run until the end of 2027. It will look at the construction and operation of the capture and liquefaction plant, its effect on the surrounding area and on public health, and the mitigation measures needed. Written comments go to the State Environmental Service by 14 September 2026; printed materials are available in Brocēni and online through the Saldus municipality and ELLE websites, and the hearing can also be joined remotely.
The context matters. Cement accounts for around 5% of Latvia's carbon emissions, according to the company, and SCHWENK reports having cut the Brocēni plant's emissions by roughly 37% over the past 16 years through the new kiln line, better technology and process improvements. Decarbonisation work at the site has been running since 2020, and last year the company opened Latvia's first carbon capture test base there. Two very different capture routes have been trialled: a hot potassium carbonate process from Norway's Capsol Technologies and a solid-sorbent approach from Svante. Technology testing is to continue into the second half of 2027, and the results will feed both the EIA and the choice of the permanent unit.
The schedule has moved out by two years, and that is worth reading carefully
Look at the dates. When the test base was announced in 2025, the public line was a final investment decision in 2027 and full-scale capture around 2030. The EIA announcement now says the final investment decision will be taken in 2028 and the plant should be operating around 2032. Nobody has called it a delay, and to be fair, running a full EIA and a two-technology pilot campaign in parallel takes the time it takes. But a two-year shift on a project of this scale is a signal, not a rounding error.
Our reading is that the economics still have to close. The full-scale project has been reported at around €500 million (an earlier estimate published via LIAA, worth verifying against SCHWENK's own figures when the EIA is out), and a capture plant of this size only pays back if three things line up: an EU ETS price high enough to make emitting more expensive than capturing, a transport and storage route with a known tariff, and a funding stack, most likely with EU Innovation Fund or Modernisation Fund money in it. The transport leg has several potential directions towards Baltic ports (Klaipeda, Ventspils, Liepaja). With most advanced (at the project stage) currently appearing to be pointing to KN Energies' planned CO₂ terminal in Klaipėda and on to Nordic offshore storage, which means Latvian process CO₂ would leave the country, and the country would pay someone else to take it. That is a perfectly reasonable baseline. It's also exactly the gap a Power-to-X offtaker could fill, and the extra two years before FID are the window in which that conversation is still open.
Latvia's first full-scale industrial decarbonisation permitting path
Set the carbon question aside for a moment, because something else is happening in Brocēni that hydrogen developers should study closely. This is, as far as we can tell, the first time a heavy-industry decarbonisation project of this size goes through Latvia's full EIA procedure: scoping, expert studies, State Environmental Service oversight, a public hearing with childcare and a science workshop laid on so parents can attend, a formal comment window, and a report that has to survive scrutiny before any permit is issued. Every large electrolyser, every ammonia or e-methanol plant, every port-side hydrogen hub in Latvia will walk the same corridor.
So the value of this process goes well beyond one cement plant. It tests how long an industrial EIA really takes here, how the environmental authority handles unfamiliar process risks such as CO₂ liquefaction and storage on site, and how a Latvian town reacts when a familiar employer proposes new chemistry next door. The way SCHWENK has approached the hearing, early, local and in person, is the model to copy. Hydrogen and PtX projects in Liepāja, Ventspils, Riga or Rēzekne won't get a second chance at first impressions with their communities, and Brocēni is showing what a serious first impression looks like.
Unavoidable process CO₂ deserves the same league as biogenic carbon
Now to the argument we actually want to make. Most of the CO₂ from a cement kiln doesn't come from burning fuel. It comes from the limestone itself: calcination releases carbon dioxide as a matter of chemistry, and the commonly cited figure is that roughly 60% of a cement plant's emissions are process emissions that no fuel switch, no electrification and no efficiency gain can remove. The same is true of lime. You can capture it, or you can emit it. Those are the options.
EU rules for renewable fuels of non-biological origin recognise this, at least for now. As we read the delegated act on the greenhouse-gas methodology for RFNBOs, CO₂ captured from industrial installations under the ETS can count as a fuel input until 2041, with a Commission review due in 2028 (verify the exact dates against Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/1185 before quoting them). After that the door is meant to narrow to biogenic CO₂, direct air capture and carbon from unavoidable sources. Our conviction, and we hold it firmly, is that mineral process emissions from cement and lime will end up in that last category, treated in the same league as biogenic CO₂ and priced close to it. The chemistry doesn't leave much room for another outcome. If that is right, then Brocēni is not a liability to be exported; it is the largest single, long-lived, high-purity carbon feedstock in Latvia, and it will be worth more as a raw material than as a disposal cost.
To make that concrete, here is an indicative sketch. Treat every figure as an order-of-magnitude estimate to be verified against a proper feasibility study, not a design basis:
Converting the full 800,000 tonnes of CO₂ a year into e-methanol would call for roughly 110,000 tonnes of green hydrogen and around 5.5–6 TWh of electricity, which is broadly comparable to Latvia's whole annual electricity consumption. Nobody is going to do that in one step.
Taking a tenth of the stream is a different story: around 80,000 tonnes of CO₂ would yield in the region of 55,000–60,000 tonnes of e-methanol a year, need roughly 11,000 tonnes of hydrogen, and about 0.6 TWh of electricity, which points to an electrolyser in the 100–150 MW range depending on load factor. That is a project size Baltic developers are already talking about for ports and shipping fuel.
The captured CO₂ would arrive already purified and liquefied, which removes one of the costlier steps from the PtX side of the ledger.
The point isn't the exact numbers. The point is that the carbon source, the grid connection, the industrial site and the permitting path all sit in one place, in a municipality that has just shown it can host a serious industrial conversation.
What Latvian hydrogen ecosystem stakeholders can do with the 2028 window
Think about it this way: between now and SCHWENK's investment decision there are roughly two years in which the offtake for Brocēni's CO₂ is not yet fixed. That's the useful part of the delay. Developers can bring an e-methanol or e-fuel case to the table while the storage tariff is still an estimate rather than a contract. Regional policymakers can make sure the Latvian position in Brussels, when the 2028 RFNBO review comes round, is that mineral process CO₂ from cement and lime is unavoidable and should be treated as such. And the same EIA the cement plant is going through can be read as a rehearsal for the permits hydrogen projects will need.
The simplest first step is the most human one: turn up. The hearing is at 18:00 on 8 September at the Brocēni Culture Centre, Lielcieceres iela 10, and written comments are open until 14 September. A room full of people who understand that captured carbon has a second life is a very different room from one that only hears about pipelines and risk.
Source: SCHWENK uzsāk ietekmes uz vidi novērtējumu un rīko sabiedrisko apspriešanu