Northern Lights celebrates completion of world’s first commercial CO2 transport and storage service

Øygarden, Norway - September 26 2024

Historic day for CCS: Today Northern Lights JV unveiled the completed CO₂ receiving facilities in Øygarden, Norway. The onshore and offshore infrastructure has been delivered on time for customers and within budget and is now ready to receive CO₂ from Norwegian and European industry. Northern Lights is the first to offer commercial CO₂ transport and storage as a service.

Hundreds of guests from the local community as well as policymakers and industry leaders from across Europe were gathered to celebrate the milestone. Norwegian Minister of Energy, Terje Aasland, did the honour of opening the gates to the facilities.

“Today’s ceremony marks a significant milestone—one that fills us with great pride and hope for the future. This is a proud moment not just for Northern Lights as a company, but for Norway and for the advancement of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) worldwide”, says Terje Aasland, Norwegian Minister of Energy.

Managing Director of Northern Lights JV, Tim Heijn, is pleased to declare the facilities completed and ready for CO₂.

“Today we achieved an important milestone on our journey to demonstrate CCS as a viable option to help achieve climate goals. The whole world is looking to Norway to learn about CCS. Since construction started, we have welcomed more than 10,000 visitors from more than 50 countries. Today we celebrated the completion of the facilities together with the people of our host municipality Øygarden, the Norwegian Ministry of Energy, and key stakeholders, including policy makers and industry partners in the CCS chain. All are instrumental for the success of Northern Lights and the CCS business in Europe”, says Heijn.

Northern Lights is a Joint Venture between Equinor, TotalEnergies and Shell. The partnership began in 2017, and construction of the facilities began in 2021 after the owners finalised their investment decision and the historic approval vote for the Longship project in the Norwegian parliament.

“Longship is by far the largest climate project in Norwegian industry to date».”, says then Norwegian Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Tina Bru.

“This is an exciting day for 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.”, says Grete Tveit, Senior Vice President Low Carbon Solutions at Equinor.

“We are proud to celebrate today the commissioning of the Northern Lights facilities. It has been a long journey since our partnership with the Norwegian State, Equinor and Shell started in 2017. This major milestone signals the readiness of the infrastructure to store CO₂and 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”, says Arnaud Le Foll, Senior Vice-President New Business – Carbon Neutrality at TotalEnergies.

“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. I am delighted that the Northern Lights facilities are now ready to receive CO₂ from industrial sites across Europe, for Shell this is an important part of our integrated offer to our customers”, says Anna Mascolo, Executive Vice President, Shell Low Carbon Solutions.

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Read the full news release here