Northern Lights, a joint venture between energy giants TotalEnergies, Shell and Equinor, announced the completion of the world’s first commercial CO2 transportation and storage project in Norway, which is now ready to receive and store captured CO2 from hard-to-abate European industries.

The Northern Lights project was launched in late 2020, as the transport and storage component of Longship, the Norwegian Government’s full-scale carbon capture and storage project. Longship was unveiled in September 2020, with the government describing carbon capture and storage as a prerequisite for reducing global greenhouse gas emissions in line with the Paris Agreement climate targets.

Anna Mascolo, Executive Vice President at Shell Low Carbon Solutions said:

“Carbon capture and storage has a vital role to play in helping society achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. Alongside efforts to avoid and reduce emissions, CCS will be an essential tool in supporting our customers on their decarbonisation journeys, particularly in those industries that are harder to decarbonise.”

The Northern Lights facilities include a terminal that will receive liquid CO2 captured from industrial sources, a 100 km subsea pipeline to transport the CO2 to an offshore storage location, and subsea injection facilities for permanent storage 2,600 meters below the seabed.

Supported by the Norwegian government, the now completed first phase of the Northern Lights project has a capacity to transport and store 1.5 million tons of CO2 per year, with studies underway to expand to more than 5 million tons per year in a second phase. The capacity for the first phase has already been fully booked by customers in Norway and Continental Europe.

The first CO2 injection for the project is expected in 2025.

Grete Tveit, Senior Vice President Low Carbon Solutions at Equinor, said:

“This is an exciting day for both Equinor, Northern Lights Joint Venture and our partners Shell and TotalEnergies. We are proud that Northern Lights, as part of the Longship value chain, has now been completed and is ready to receive CO2. It is an important milestone in the work of establishing a Carbon Capture and Storage value-chain in Europe.”

Arnaud Le Foll, Senior Vice-President New Business – Carbon Neutrality at TotalEnergies, added:

“This major milestone signals the readiness of the infrastructure to store CO2 and we look forward to receiving the first volumes from hard-to-abate emitters in 2025. This will bring a strong contribution to the decarbonization of European industry.”