Highlights

• Norway’s Northern Lights project stores its first CO2 2,600 metres below the seabed.
• CO2 captured from the Brevik cement plant was shipped, transferred to onshore tanks, and transported via a 100 km pipeline for storage.
• Phase 1 offers 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 storage per year, with plans for Phase 2 to expand capacity to 3.5 million tonnes annually.

Norway has officially begun operations at its Northern Lights carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, developed by Shell, Equinor, and TotalEnergies.

The project has successfully injected its first volumes of carbon dioxide (CO2) into a storage site 2,600 metres below the seabed. This marks an important step in showing that CCS can be scaled up as a practical solution to reduce industrial emissions.

The Northern Lights project is part of Longship, a government-supported programme aimed at making CCS commercially viable. The goal is to cut CO2 emissions from hard-to-decarbonise industries, such as cement, which still rely heavily on fossil fuels.

Read More: Gasunie to Invest €12B in CCS and Hydrogen Infrastructure

In this first operation, the captured CO2 came from the Brevik cement plant, run by Heidelberg Materials in southern Norway. After capture, the CO2 was transported by ship, stored temporarily in onshore tanks, and then sent through a 100 km pipeline to the underground reservoir.

With the successful start of operations, Phase 1 of Northern Lights is now complete. This phase can handle up to 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year, or 37.5 million tonnes over 25 years, and its capacity has already been fully booked by industrial clients.

Also Read: HyNet Expansion Marks Key Step for Carbon Capture in Wales

Looking ahead, the partners have committed 7.5 billion Norwegian crowns (around $744 million) to develop Phase 2, which will expand capacity to 3.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year.

Ends/

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Source: Reuters