Wallonia establishes the procedure for the CO2 network development plan

The Walloon Government established, by an order of September 10, 2026, the procedure for the drafting, approval, and publication of the development plan for the CO2 transport network and local CO2 branches. The text was published in the Belgian Official Gazette of October 9, 2026 (2nd edition, p. 54327) under reference C − 2026/007289. It frames a planning document covering at least ten years, a cornerstone of the deployment of CO2 capture and transport in Wallonia.

The order is based on the decree of March 28, 2024, relating to the transport of carbon dioxide by pipelines (Article 3, paragraph 3, 1°, and Article 23, paragraph 9) and the decree of November 16, 2023, relating to Carbon Neutrality (Article 6). The Government justifies the intervention by the need to specify the minimum elements that must appear in the plan, so that it and the CWaPE can assess its technical and economic coherence.

The file was processed based on a report dated November 27, 2025, integrating the gender dimension and opinion 79.432/17 of the Council of State, issued on June 22, 2026. The order was adopted on the proposal of the Minister for the Air-Climate Plan and signed in Namur on September 10, 2026, by Minister-President A. Dolimont and the Minister for Energy, the Air-Climate Plan, Housing, and Airports C. Neven.

A four-step timeline

The network or local branch operator must organize a public consultation on the draft plan no later than January 31 of the year preceding the first year covered. This consultation lasts thirty days and concerns a project covering at least ten years; useful documents, baseline data, assumptions, and scenarios are posted online, with the exception of commercially sensitive information and personal data.

• Submission of the plan to the CWaPE: no later than May 1 of the year preceding the covered period, including the result of the consultation and the actions taken.
• CWaPE opinion: within sixty days of receipt; the operator has twenty days to provide the requested additional information.
• Minister’s analysis: maximum sixty days from the CWaPE opinion; a request for explanations suspends the deadlines and opens a response period of thirty days, reduced to a minimum of fifteen days if another deadline is set.
• Decision of the Walloon Government: ninety days from the CWaPE opinion, after consultation with federal authorities and other regions.

The Government may approve the plan, approve it subject to the inclusion of additional explanations or data, or reject it by providing the reasons for its decision. In the event of a rejection or lack of approval, no plan shall enter into force if it is the first; a previously approved plan remains applicable until a new plan enters into force.

A Regulated Minimum Content

The plan must, in particular, explain the scenarios and assumptions adopted, provide a detailed map of existing and planned installations for the next ten years, describe the current and expected level of utilization, identify installations transporting other products that could be repurposed for CO2, provide an annual status report on previous developments, and detail the planned achievements with an annual schedule.

The status report and description cover fourteen categories of assets, including industrial and administrative buildings, pipes and conduits, network sectorization valves, connections, measurement and metering devices, remote transmission, optical fibers, rolling stock, network management software, and compression installations. For each, the operator transmits the amounts in euros and the quantities annually to the CWaPE, specifying the lengths in meters where applicable.

Revision, Entry into Force, and Publication

A revision may occur at the deadlines provided for by the decree of March 28, 2024, or in exceptional, urgent, and duly justified circumstances, strictly limited to external events likely to substantially affect the security, adequacy, or economic coherence of the network. The opinion of the CWaPE is mandatory in all cases, and each revision updates the plan for a period of at least ten years.

The plan or its revision enters into force ten days after its publication in the Belgian Official Gazette. The Government’s decision is published therein, the plan is published by extract, and the full text is posted online on the websites of the CWaPE and the relevant operator, with the publication date clearly indicated and historical versions preserved. For the first plan, the minister may adapt the consultation and transmission deadlines, while respecting transparency and public participation.

This procedural framework conditions the effective implementation of the CO2 transport infrastructure in Wallonia: without an approved plan, no development can be launched, and the deadlines for consultation, opinion, and approval now set the pace at which capture and transport projects may be authorized.

Source: Belgian Official Gazette, October 9, 2026, 2nd edition, p. 54327 — reference C − 2026/007289.