The Northern Lights joint venture between Equinor, Shell and Total Energies has been officially opened at a ceremony held by the Norwegian Energy Minister, Terje Aasland.
The Northern Lights project is part of Norway’s full-scale CCS project: Longship. This is a programme aiming to establish an entire CO2 value chain in Norway. It will capture CO2 from industrial sources and ship this to Northern Lights’ Øygarden terminal facilities. From there, the liquified CO2 will be transported by pipeline to the offshore storage location below the seabed in the North Sea, for safe and permanent storage.
Equinor CEO, Anders Opedal, commented: “The completion of the Northern Lights facility marks an important milestone for the global development of a business model for carbon capture, transport and storage. It opens a value chain for decarbonisation of European industry and energy and shows the role we and our partners take in developing low carbon solutions in the energy transition.”
1.5 million tonnes of CO2 has already been fully booked for the first phase of the Northern Lights project, but there are plans to increase transport and storage capacity for the future.
A binding commercial agreement has been signed with Yara International, one of the world’s biggest ammonia producers, to establish the world’s first cross-border transportation and storage of CO2.
Source: Equinor