On September 26, 2024, the Northern Lights CO2 transport and storage facility in Øygarden, near Bergen, officially opened, marking a significant milestone as the world’s first cross-border CO2 transport and storage facility.
This project is a collaboration among Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies, aimed at establishing a sustainable business model for carbon capture, transport, and storage. Equinor CEO Anders Opedal emphasized that this development opens a vital value chain for the decarbonization of European industries and highlights the commitment of the partners to advancing low-carbon solutions during the energy transition.
The Northern Lights facility is an integral part of Norway’s full-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) initiative known as Longship. This ambitious project encompasses capturing CO2 from various industrial sources, transporting the liquefied CO2 to the Øygarden terminal, and subsequently piping it to an offshore storage site beneath the North Sea.
Large-scale CCS is crucial for addressing emissions from hard-to-abate sectors and facilitating their decarbonization, thus playing a key role in the global energy transition.
With a first-phase capacity of 1.5 million tons of CO2 per year already fully booked, the joint venture partners are actively exploring plans to expand the facility’s transport and storage capabilities.
Anders Opedal noted that the collaboration between government and industry demonstrates the potential for significant achievements in reducing risks associated with CCS projects, and the insights gained from Northern Lights will inform the development of future CCS initiatives.
