The first CO2 volumes have been transported through a 100-kilometre pipeline and injected into the Aurora reservoir 2600 metres below the seabed of the Norwegian North Sea. Northern Lights JV will transport and store CO2 from Norway during the remainder of 2025 with CO2 volumes from Denmark and the Netherlands expected to be added in 2026.
Northern Lights JV is a registered, incorporated General Partnership with Shared Liability (DA) owned by Equinor, TotalEnergies and Shell.
‘We have reached an exciting milestone: We now injected and stored the very first CO2 safely in the reservoir. Our ships, facilities and wells are now in operation,’ says Tim Heijn, Managing Director of Northern Lights JV.
Also read: Northern Lights orders CO2 carriers with WASP and air lubrication
Expanding to 5 million tonnes CO2
In March this year, Northern Lights made the final investment decision for the expansion project that will increase transport and storage capacity from 1.5 million tonnes CO2 per year to a minimum of 5 million tonnes CO2 per year, following the signing of a commercial agreement with Stockholm Exergi. The expansion is enabled by a grant from the Connecting Europe Facility for Energy (CEF Energy) funding scheme.
The expansion leverages existing infrastructure and includes additional onshore storage tanks, pumps, a new jetty, injection wells, and more CO2 transport ships to enable an increased injection rate and volume.
‘We are excited to continue building additional capacity following the positive investment decision for the second phase,’ adds Heijn.
Commercial CCS services
Northern Lights offers CO2 transport and storage as a service to remove industrial emissions in Europe. Liquefied CO2 from capture sites is shipped to the company’s onshore receiving terminal in western Norway, before being transported by pipeline for permanent storage in a reservoir 2600 metres under the seabed. Northern Lights is the first company to offer commercial CCS services.
The first phase of Northern Lights is part of Longship, the Norwegian Government’s full-scale carbon capture and storage project. The company will transport and store CO2 from two Norwegian industries; Heidelberg Materials’ cement factory in Brevik and the Hafslund Celsio’ waste-to-energy plant in Oslo. In addition, the Northern Lights JV has signed commercial agreements with Yara in the Netherlands, Ørsted in Denmark, and Stockholm Exergi in Sweden.
Picture by Northern Lights.
Also read: Yara to ship captured CO2 to Norway for subsea storage
