Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar) will tender a construction deal to build the emirate’s first carbon capture facilities in the second half of 2010, according to the head of the company’s carbon management unit.

The project covers the construction of facilities to capture and process up to 800,000 tonnes a year (t/y) of carbon dioxide produced at Emirates Steel’s Mussafah steel rolling mill.

The engineering, procurement and construction deal should be awarded before the end of 2010, said Sam Nader at the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi on 19 January. He declined to comment on a likely value for the deal.

The project will be the first of various carbon capture and storage schemes which the company, wholly owned by the government of Abu Dhabi, plans to develop.

Masdar was set up in 2008 as part of an initiative to develop alternative and renewable energy and to cut the emirate’s carbon emissions.

It also plans to build carbon capture facilities at Emirates Aluminium’s Taweelah power plant and at a second independent water and power plant (IWPP) also at Taweelah.

Carbon dioxide captured at Masdar’s planned $2.2bn joint venture hydrogen power plant at Shuwaihat, to the West of Abu Dhabi, makes up the last part of the scheme.

In total, the company says it will process 5 million tonnes a year (t/y) of carbon dioxide from 2014 onwards.

Further developments related to its plans include the world’s biggest carbon dioxide pipeline network, linking its various operating sites with a central storage facility.

Masdar plans to sell the carbon dioxide to state energy giant Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) for injection into its oilfields to maintain and increase reservoir pressure.

Adnoc is developing a pilot project to study carbon dioxide injection techniques, which sources close to the scheme say could take more than two years to complete.