Shippers eye carbon freight market in Europe

* Ships could be short-term solution to CO2 transport

* Oil, gas infrastructure a longer term answer in NW Europe

By Jonathan Saul

LONDON, May 15 (Reuters) - Shipping groups are looking into providing vessels capable of transporting carbon dioxide to offshore disposal sites as part of the European Union's push to curb greenhouse gas emissions, ship industry officials say.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) could keep up to a third of manmade carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the air by trapping and then burying emissions from fossil fuel power plants, analysts say.

The EU has an ambition to have up to 12 demonstration plants using CCS by 2015.

"In the short term shipping could well be looked at as a way to get CCS off the ground -- particularly for continental EU demonstration projects wishing to utilise distant North Sea storage," said Malcolm Ricketts, principal carbon analyst with energy consultants Wood Mackenzie.

Pipelines already in place to bring oil and gas from the North Sea to Germany, Britain and Norway were a likely longer term solution to transport greenhouse gases the other way.