Northern Lights gig lands on ABL’s plate

January 6, 2026, by Melisa Cavcic

Oslo-listed global consultancy ABL Group has been hired for work on the second phase of Northern Lights, part of the Longship full-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Norway.

While announcing a contract with Equinor to provide marine warranty survey (MWS) services to the Northern Lights Phase 2 project, which is based on Gassnova SF’s design basis with transport and storage of an annual volume of 1.5 Mt/y CO2, ABL explains that its Norway operations, based in Stavanger, will provide marine verification and warranty services with site attendances and marine surveys to support the construction of the CO2 transport and storage expansion.

The company will also deliver technical document review and approval of all project and procedural documentation for warranted operations. Under the terms of the contract, ABL’s Norwegian operation will begin its work scope in early 2026, with the work set to continue through to 2027.

Subbi Nookala, ABL’s Country Manager in Norway, commented: “This is an important climate initiative that any industry player would be proud to be part of. Northern Lights is an important milestone in energy transition of Norway and Europe and offers an open-source facility to decarbonise hard to abate industrial emitters.

“We have delivered marine warranty survey support to clients on the Norwegian Continental Shelf since the 1980s and look forward to applying this competence to this exciting project too.”

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As part of the Longship full-scale project, Northern Lights will receive liquid CO2 from customers with carbon capture and liquification facilities, while unallocated capacity will be made available for CO2 from other national and international capture sites.

The Northern Lights JV, where Equinor acts as technical service provider on behalf of the joint venture, encompassing the Norwegian giant, Shell, and TotalEnergies, has completed the first phase of the project’s CO2 transport and storage infrastructure.

With operations starting in the summer of 2025, Northern Lights is now expanding to a minimum of 5 million tonnes annual storage capacity with a commercially based investment to meet growing demand from European industries.

This assignment comes after ABL was picked to oversee rig moves for India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).