Undersea CO2 storage service in Norway to be expanded

A joint venture grouping oil giants Equinor of Norway, Anglo-Dutch Shell and TotalEnergies of France, the project plans to take CO2 captured at factory smokestacks in Europe and inject them into a geological reservoir under the seabed.

The aim is to prevent the emissions from being released into the atmosphere, and thereby help halt climate change.

The project -- one of the most advanced in the world -- is due to start operations this summer.

Initially, the plan was to be able to transport and bury 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 each year. Provided there was enough demand, this figure would be increased to 5 million tonnes a year.

On Thursday, the three partners in the project announced that they would invest 7.5 billion kroner ($713 million) to achieve the 5-million-tonne capacity. The investment included a 131-million-euro ($141 million) grant from the European Commission.

"The decision to expand our CO2 transport and storage services represents the next step in building a commercially viable CCS (carbon capture and storage) market in Europe," Tim Heijn, Managing Director of Northern Lights, said in a statement.

The upgraded capacity should be reached in the second half of 2028, according to the company.

Northern Lights also announced the signing of a new contract with Swedish utility Stockholm Exergi for the transport and storage of up to 900,000 tonnes of CO2 captured at its biomass-fuelled power station in Stockholm.

In practical terms, after capture the CO2 is liquefied, transported by ship and then transferred into large tanks before being injected through a 110-kilometre (68-mile) pipeline into the seabed, at a depth of around 2.6 kilometres, for permanent storage.

CCS technology is complex and costly but has been advocated by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the International Energy Agency (IEA), especially for reducing the CO2 footprint of industries like cement and steel, which are difficult to decarbonise.

The world's overall capture capacity is currently just 50.5 million tonnes, according to the IEA, or barely 0.1 percent of the world's annual total emissions.

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Equinor

Shell

TotalEnergies