First CO2 volumes successfully stored at Northern Lights

Norwegian energy company Equinor has announced that the first CO2 volumes have been injected and successfully stored in the reservoir 2,600 meters under the seabed.

The pioneering third party CO2 transport and storage facility is now in operation, following the successful transport of CO2 via ships from Heidelberg Materials’ cement factory in Brevik.

The CO2 was offloaded and transported through a 100-kilometer pipeline and injected into the Aurora reservoir under the seabed of the North Sea.

CEO of Equinor, Anders Opedal, commented in a statement: “With CO2 safely stored below the seabed, we mark a major milestone. This demonstrates the viability of carbon capture, transport and storage as a scalable industry. With the support from the Norwegian government and in close collaboration with our partners, we have successfully transformed this project from concept to reality.”

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The Northern Lights Joint Venture is equally owned by Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies. Equinor, as the Technical Service Provider (TSP), has been responsible for the construction of the Øygarden facility and the offshore facilities on behalf of the Northern Lights JV, and will also have operational responsibility of the CO2 plant.

Irene Rummelhoff, executive vice president of MMP at Equinor, added: “Lifting new value chains like CO2 capture, transport and storage requires collaboration and effort across the value chain - from governments, industry and customers. With Northern Lights in operation, we have proven that this is possible. Now, we look forward to leading safe and efficient operations on behalf of the Northern Lights partnership and use this as a stepping stone for the further development of CCS in Europe.”

The commenced injection of CO2 completes the phase 1 of the development, which has a total capacity of 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year (mtpa). The capacity of this phase is fully booked.

In March, the owners of Northern Lights made the final investment decision for the second phase of the development, which will increase transport and storage capacity to a minimum of 5 million tonnes of CO2 per year.

This decision was made possible after signing of an agreement to transport and store up to 900,000 tonnes CO2 annually from Stockholm Exergi. The expansion is enabled by a grant from the Connecting Europe Facility for Energy (CEF Energy) funding scheme.

The expansion of Northern Lights builds on existing infrastructure and includes additional onshore storage tanks, a new jetty, and additional injection wells. The development of phase 2 with Equinor as TSP is well underway, with the delivery of nine new CO2 storage tanks at the Øygarden site this summer.

Equinor has an ambition of having 30-50 million tonnes per annum of CO2 transport and storage capacity by 2035. To achieve this, Equinor is working on several CCS projects in Europe and the US.