Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies have decided to invest NOK7.5bn ($710m) in the next phase of the Northern Lights carbon capture and storage (CCS) project.
The final investment decision (FID) on the project was taken after the signing of a new 15-year commercial agreement with Stockholm Exergi to transport and store 900,000 tonnes of biogenic CO2 annually.
The second phase of Northern Lights is expected to increase the CCS project’s capacity from 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year to at least 5 million tonnes.
The investment includes €131m (NOK1.5bn) contribution from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) funding scheme, an initiative endorsed by the European Commission in 2024.
Equinor CEO Anders Opedal said: “This is a major step in the further development of a large-scale carbon capture, transportation and storage value chain. The support from the Norwegian Government and European Commission has been important contributing factors to successfully completing phase 1 and advancing phase 2. 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.”
The upcoming phase will leverage the existing onshore and offshore infrastructure and introduce new onshore storage tanks, an additional jetty, and more injection wells. The expansion is expected to achieve operational readiness by the latter half of 2028, with Equinor maintaining its role as the technical service provider (TSP) on behalf of the partnership.
The capacity of the initial phase of Northern Lights is fully booked. It is set to begin operations this summer, starting with CO2 shipments from Heidelberg Materials’ cement plant in Brevik, Norway. The CO2 will be injected and permanently stored in a geological reservoir 2,600m below the seabed near Øygarden in western Norway.
In addition to Stockholm Exergi, Northern Lights has secured commitments from four other companies for CO2 transport and storage- Heidelberg Materials and Celsio in Norway, Yara in the Netherlands, and Ørsted in Denmark. The project will also store carbon dioxide from the Hafslund Celsio waste-to-energy facility in Oslo.
Notably, the Northern Lights Joint Venture operates as a General Partnership with Shared Liability (DA), with Equinor, TotalEnergies, and Shell as equal owners.
