Photo: Northern Lights
Northern Lights has injected the first CO2 volumes below the seabed of the Norwegian North Sea. The firm claims it is the first to offer commercial carbon storage services.
Northern Lights is owned by oil and gas giants Equinor, TotalEnergies, and Shell.
The first CO2 volumes have now been transported through the 100-kilometer pipeline and injected into the Aurora reservoir 2,600 meters below the seabed of the Norwegian North Sea, according to the company.
Northern Lights JV Managing Director Tim Heijn said the company has reached an exciting milestone – the very first CO2 volumes have now been injected and stored safely in the reservoir. “Our ships, facilities, and wells are now in operation,” he said.
Northern Lights will transport and store CO₂ from Norway for the remainder of 2025, with CO2 volumes from Denmark and the Netherlands expected to be added in 2026, according to the firm.
The company will transport and store CO2 from two Norwegian industrial sites: Heidelberg Materials’ cement factory in Brevik and Hafslund Celsio’s waste-to-energy plant in Oslo. In addition, commercial agreements have been signed with Yara in the Netherlands, Ørsted in Denmark, and Stockholm Exergi in Sweden.
The operation is part of Longship, the government’s full-scale CCS project
The first phase of Northern Lights is part of Longship, the Norwegian government’s full-scale carbon capture and storage project (CCS).
According to the government’s website, Longship is Europe’s first complete value chain for the capture, transport, and storage of industrial CO2 emissions and the largest climate initiative in Norwegian industrial history.
Longship involves government support for developing the Northern Lights transport and storage infrastructure, according to the website.
CO2 is transported by specially designed ships from the capture sites to an onshore reception terminal in Øygarden. From there, it is transported by a pipeline to the injection well, where it will be pumped into the subsea reservoir.
Heidelberg Materials and Celsio are expected to deliver approximately 400,000 tons of CO2 each annually, according to the website.
The project is expanding
In March this year, Northern Lights made the final investment decision for the expansion project, which will increase the transport and storage capacity from 1.5 million tons of CO₂ per year to a minimum of five million tons, following the signing of a commercial agreement with Stockholm Exergi.
The expansion was enabled by a EUR 131 million grant from the Connecting Europe Facility for Energy (CEF Energy) funding scheme, the company said.
The expansion leverages existing infrastructure and includes additional onshore storage tanks, pumps, a new jetty, injection wells, and more CO₂ transport ships to enable an increased injection rate and volume.
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