German building materials producer Heidelberg Materials has suspended the GeZero project, which was intended to enable the capture of up to 700,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year at its cement plant in Geseke. The investment, worth more than €500 million, received approximately €191 million in funding from the EU Innovation Fund, but despite public support, it cannot proceed according to the original schedule. The company points to the lack of sufficiently developed infrastructure for CO₂ transport and storage, as well as economic risks it is unwilling to accept.
The decision was announced on 22 October 2026. Heidelberg Materials said that the GeZero project was being suspended in its current form and that its plans would undergo further optimisation. No new implementation date has been announced, nor has the company indicated when the investment might resume.
The company justified its decision by citing the lack of conditions necessary to establish a sustainable business model. Its statement emphasised that solutions for transporting and storing carbon dioxide are not yet sufficiently developed to guarantee availability within the required timeframe and at an acceptable level of financial risk.
– The current framework conditions are not yet sufficient to provide a robust business case – the company said, explaining the reasons for suspending the project.
Suspending the project does not mean that the cement plant in Geseke will close. The company explicitly stated that the decision applies only to the CO₂ capture installation and has no direct impact on the facility’s ongoing operations.
Christoph Streicher, managing director of Heidelberg Materials in Germany, emphasised that Geseke remains an important location for the company. He explained that the current pause would allow the next stages of the project to be planned under conditions that would ensure its long term economic viability and regulatory feasibility.
More than €500 million in investment and €191 million from the European Union
GeZero was intended to be one of Germany’s most important projects for decarbonising cement production. The total investment was estimated at more than €500 million, of which approximately €191 million was to come from the EU Innovation Fund.
The programme supports innovative industrial solutions designed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Funding is awarded to projects that can help develop low carbon technologies and enable their wider adoption across the economy.
In the case of GeZero, public support was intended to help bring the CO₂ capture installation into operation and establish the entire logistics chain required for permanent storage. The facility capturing the gas was only one component of the overall project.
The suspension raises questions about the project’s future schedule and how to proceed with an undertaking that has received substantial public funding. Heidelberg Materials did not specify a new implementation date in its statement or provide a detailed timetable for further work.
700,000 tonnes of CO₂ per year. How the Geseke installation was supposed to work
The project envisaged capturing up to 700,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually. The installation was to be built at the cement plant in Geseke, North Rhine Westphalia. The capture technology was intended to reduce emissions generated during cement production, including those that cannot be eliminated simply by changing fuels or improving energy efficiency.
The project was designed to use second generation oxyfuel technology. In simplified terms, this involves combustion in an oxygen enriched environment, making it possible to produce a gas stream with a high concentration of CO₂ and facilitating its separation from other components.
This is important because cement production generates emissions from two main sources. The first is the combustion of fuels needed to achieve the high temperatures required in the kiln. The second is the chemical reactions that occur during clinker production, clinker being the main component of cement.
When limestone is heated, carbon dioxide is released as calcium carbonate decomposes. These emissions cannot be eliminated simply by switching to renewable energy, because they are directly linked to the chemical process. For this reason, CO₂ capture is regarded as one of the technologies capable of enabling deep emissions reductions in the cement industry.
According to Heidelberg Materials, approximately two thirds of direct emissions from cement production are process emissions resulting from the processing of raw materials. Reducing fuel consumption, improving efficiency and lowering the proportion of clinker in the final product can reduce emissions, but these measures do not solve the entire problem.
CO₂ was supposed to travel by rail and then beneath the North Sea
The biggest challenge for GeZero was not capturing carbon dioxide itself, but ensuring that it could be transported safely and economically to a storage site.
Geseke is located inland in Germany and has no direct access to a seaport. The project therefore envisaged infrastructure that would enable CO₂ to be transported by rail. The cement plant was to be equipped with facilities for conditioning the gas, temporarily storing it and loading it into specialised tank wagons.
The CO₂ would then be delivered to a transshipment terminal, from where it could be transported by ship or pipeline to permanent storage sites beneath the seabed of the North Sea.
The planned infrastructure therefore comprised several separate components: the capture installation, gas conditioning and storage at the plant, rail transport, a transshipment terminal and access to geological storage facilities. Each stage requires appropriate investment, permits and cooperation with infrastructure operators.
Heidelberg Materials is responsible for cement production, CO₂ capture and preparing the gas for transport. The remaining parts of the chain depend on external partners. The producer cannot independently guarantee that terminals, transport links and storage sites will be ready on time.
It was precisely this uncertainty over infrastructure availability and the cost of using it that the company identified as one of the main reasons for suspending the project.
Company calls for government support to reduce risk
Heidelberg Materials argues that developing carbon capture and storage technology requires mechanisms to limit the risks borne by companies undertaking the first investments of this kind.
The company supports the introduction of a government backed risk mitigation mechanism for pioneering projects. The issue arises when a company incurs high costs to build an installation, but its ability to use that facility depends on infrastructure being developed by other parties.
In the case of GeZero, the producer would have had to invest hundreds of millions of euros before gaining full certainty that the captured CO₂ could be collected, transported and permanently stored under conditions that made the entire undertaking economically viable.
For the investor, this represents a risk that extends beyond its control over the technology itself. Even a well functioning installation may fail to deliver the expected results if there is no way to transfer the gas for further transport or storage.
The company has also highlighted the possibility of storing CO₂ onshore. In some cases, this could reduce costs and improve the economics of projects located far from the coast. However, it would require suitable geological conditions, an appropriate legal framework and acceptance of the proposed storage sites by local communities and authorities.
Germany is developing regulations, but infrastructure must keep pace
Developing carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology requires not only industrial investment but also an appropriate regulatory framework. Rules must be established for CO₂ transport, operator liability, access to infrastructure and the safe storage of the gas.
Germany and the European Union are working on legal frameworks and strategies for carbon dioxide management. For investors, however, it is not enough for a technology to be formally permitted. They also need to be able to use it under predictable financial and operational conditions.
The scale of emissions from industrial projects means that infrastructure must be built to handle large volumes of CO₂. A single installation may capture hundreds of thousands of tonnes per year, while the development of the wider market will require multiple industrial facilities to be connected to transport networks and storage sites.
EU industrial policy envisages the development of permanent CO₂ storage capacity in Europe. The availability of potential storage sites does not, however, solve the problem if suitable connections to emitting facilities are lacking or the cost of using the infrastructure remains unclear.
GeZero was intended to demonstrate how CO₂ capture at an inland industrial facility could be combined with rail transport and storage beneath the seabed. Suspending the project means that this model will not be implemented according to the original plans.
Brevik is operating, while Padeswood is under construction
Heidelberg Materials stresses that suspending the project in Geseke does not mean it is abandoning carbon capture and storage technology. The company is pursuing other projects where the conditions for implementation have been assessed as more favourable.
At Brevik in Norway, an industrial scale carbon capture and storage installation at a cement plant has been operating since June 2025. The company describes it as the world’s first industrial scale CCS installation in the cement industry.
In Padeswood in the United Kingdom, construction of another installation began in December 2025. Heidelberg Materials is also developing projects in other countries, including Canada and the United States.
Differences between these investments show that the success of the technology depends on conditions in each specific market. Key factors include the availability of transport and storage, regulation, costs and the ability to secure financing over many years.
In the case of Geseke, the company decided that it would not continue implementation in its original form under current conditions. It announced that the project would undergo further optimisation, but did not provide a new date for the start of construction or the commissioning of the installation.
