Northern Lights, the carbon capture and storage joint venture between by Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies, has awarded long-term time charters for three new LCO2 carriers, with a fourth vessel set to be awarded in April 2026, to a group of established shipowners.
Two vessels have been awarded to Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, while another will be chartered from a consortium of K Line and Malaysia’s MISC. Each of the newbuilds will have a cargo capacity of 12,000 cubic metres and will be constructed at Dalian Shipbuilding Offshore Co. in China and HD Hyundai Heavy Industries in South Korea. Deliveries are scheduled between the second half of 2028 and the first half of 2029.
The expansion follows the delivery of three smaller 7,500 cubic metre carriers since late 2024, with a fourth sister ship scheduled to enter service in 2026. The initial vessels form part of Norway’s Longship project, a government-backed effort to establish an integrated CCS value chain covering capture, transport and permanent offshore storage.
Northern Lights aims to scale transport and storage capacity to more than 5m tonnes of CO2 per year as part of its expansion project, aligning its shipping programme with signed commercial agreements with European industrial emitters. These include Heidelberg Materials’ cement plant in Brevik, Hafslund Celsio’s waste-to-energy facility in Oslo, and additional customers such as Yara, Ørsted and Stockholm Exergi.
Tim Heijn, managing director of Northern Lights, said the fleet expansion would underpin customer commitments and improve operational flexibility: ‘We are pleased to significantly grow our transport capacity by adding vessels to our existing Northern Lights fleet. With an expanded fleet, we will be able to deliver on our commitments to our customers. It will also enable us to optimise operations and increase flexibility.’
The project began injecting LCO2 for permanent storage in August 2025. Captured volumes are shipped to an onshore receiving terminal in western Norway before being transported by pipeline to a reservoir around 2,600 metres below the seabed.
