Norway: Northern Lights approved for CO2 storage expansion

The Northern Lights joint venture (JV) has received approval from the Norwegian Ministry of Energy for the expansion of the namesake CO2 transport and storage development.

The expansion in Phase 2 will increase the transport and storage capacity from 1.5 million to at least 5 million tons of CO2 per year. The project includes expanding the onshore terminal at Øygarden with a new jetty, constructing additional storage tanks and increasing the pump capacity, while the number of offshore injection wells will be increased from two to four.

The JV partners Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies announced on March 27 the final investment decision (FID) for the expansion project.

As part of the expansion, Northern Lights has signed a commercial agreement with Stockholm Exergi to handle up to 900,000 tons of CO2 annually from its bioenergy facility in Sweden, representing the JV’s third commercial customer, alongside Yara in the Netherlands and Ørsted in Denmark.

“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,” said Tim Heijn, Managing Director of Northern Lights.

The investment in the expansion amounts to NOK 7.5 billion (around €656 million). The EU has awarded funding of €131 million, while the remainder comes from the company itself, without financial support from the Norwegian state.

Northern Lights constitutes the transport, reception and storage part of Norway’s Longship full-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, initiated by the Norwegian government and designed to demonstrate large-scale CO2 capture, transport, and storage. Northern Lights focuses on the transport and storage aspects and will also transport and store CO2 from Norwegian emitters Hafslund Celsio in Oslo and Heidelberg Materials in Brevik.

Captured and liquefied CO2 from customers’ sites is transported by ship to the onshore receiving terminal at Øygarden, then further transported via pipeline to a storage in the Aurora reservoir 2,600 meters under the North Sea seabed.

The official opening ceremony of the CO2 transport and storage facility in Øygarden, near Bergen, took place on September 26, 2024, signaling the facility’s readiness to receive and store CO2.

The PDO for the first phase was approved by the Ministry of Energy in February 2021 and operations are scheduled to start in Q3 2025. The second phase is expected to be completed for a start-up by the second half of 2028.

Equinor, acting as the technical service provider (TSP) for the project, awarded Subsea7 and Aker Solutions with contracts for the expansion.