A Final Investment Decision has been made to expand the Northern Lights carbon capture and storage site in Norway.
Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies have signed a commercial agreement with Stockholm Exergi, which will transport and store up to 900,000 tonnes of CO2 every year for 15 years.
It already has a capacity of 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year, and this will increase to 5 million a year.
The joint venture – known as Northern Lights – has put up NOK7.5 billion (€665 million), which includes €131 million from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF), to expand the capacity on the Norwegian continental shelf.
The 3.5 million extra tonnes will be accommodated with phase two builds on and offshore, and will include additional storage tanks, a new jetty and new injection wells.
The second phase is expected to be completed and ready to take carbon dioxide in the second half of 2028.
“I am very pleased that the partners in Northern Lights have progressed to the second phase of the Northern Lights project,” said Irene Rummelhoff, executive vice president for Marketing, Midstream and Processing in Equinor. “As the recently published European Clean Industrial Deal makes clear, large-scale carbon capture, transport and storage will be crucial in the energy transition as it offers a solution for hard-to-abate industrial emitters to decarbonize their processes.”
The process of storing the gas involves a 100km pipeline which takes the gas to a saline reservoir 2.6m under the seabed for permanent storage, which will regularly be monitored, the project leaders say.
The CO2 is injected as a liquid into a sandstone reservoir saturated with salt water and trapped in rock pores, where it dissolves in the water and mineralises over time.
Injected CO2 migrates and accumulates below the caprock while reservoir pressure is increasing. Pressure build-up and CO2 migration are constantly monitored and the gas cannot leak out of the rocks, even at higher pressures, given the 2.6 km of rocks above it.
“That we are now able to progress the Northern Lights’ project second phase on a commercial basis demonstrates the value of public-private partnerships to reduce risk and attract customers,” said Equinor CEO Anders Opedal.
