The Norwegian government has approved the second phase of the Northern Lights carbon transport and storage project. The joint venture between Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies received formal clearance from the Ministry of Energy for its Plan for Development and Operation (PDO) on 17 June. The approval enables Northern Lights to proceed with construction, which will increase CO2 transport and storage capacity from 1.5 million tonnes to at least 5 million tonnes per year.
The Phase 2 investment is valued at NOK 7.5 billion (approximately €656 million), of which €131 million is funding by the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility for Energy (CEF Energy). The remaining amount will be funded through commercial enterprise, with no further financial support from the Norwegian government.
Tim Heijn, Managing Director of Northern Lights, commented on the approval: ‘This is a major milestone for the carbon capture and storage chain in Norway. Receiving PDO approval for Phase 2 enables us to move forward with delivering increased capacity to our existing and future customers.’
The physical scope of the expansion involves doubling the number of offshore injection wells from two to four, increasing pump capacity, and constructing new storage tanks and a second jetty at the Øygarden terminal near Bergen. Captured and liquefied CO2 will be transported by ship to this terminal before being injected into the Aurora reservoir, located 2,600 metres beneath the North Sea seabed.
The Northern Lights infrastructure also supports Norway’s Longship CCS initiative, which aims to demonstrate the viability of a full-scale carbon capture, transport, and storage system. Under this framework, CO2 will be transported from domestic emitters, including Hafslund Celsio in Oslo and Heidelberg Materials in Brevik.
On 18 June, the day after the PDO approval, Heidelberg Materials opened its carbon capture facility at Brevik, the first industrial-scale CCS plant in the global cement industry. The facility will capture 400,000 tonnes of CO2 annually, approximately half of the plant’s emissions, using amine-based technology. This CO2 will be liquefied on site and shipped by purpose-built vessels to Øygarden, from where it will be permanently stored by Northern Lights.
Dr Dominik von Achten, Chairman of the Managing Board of Heidelberg Materials, said of the announcement: ‘Today marks a historic milestone and tectonic shift in the built environment. The opening of Brevik CCS is a tremendous technological achievement that will serve as a blueprint for entire industries as we progress towards Net Zero and into a new era of sustainable construction.’
The Brevik facility is central to Heidelberg’s launch of evoZero, a line of carbon-neutral cement products. According to the company, the success of the Brevik installation will inform future CCS projects at other cement plants globally.
Northern Lights has also secured a new commercial contract with Stockholm Exergi to handle up to 900,000 tonnes of biogenic CO2 annually from its Swedish bioenergy plant. This brings the number of international commercial customers to three, alongside Ørsted in Denmark and Yara in the Netherlands.
Operations for Phase 1 are expected to begin in the third quarter of 2025, following the arrival earlier this year of the Northern Pioneer, the world’s first commercial vessel designed for transporting LCO2. The second phase of the project is scheduled to be operational by the second half of 2028.
