UK and Norway Look to Carbon Pipeline Deal as Starmer Visits

(Bloomberg) -- Britain and Norway are set to announce plans for an industrial partnership for green energy including a future arrangement to transport of carbon under the sea. 

The broad agreement, to be signed in 2025, “will support our aim to secure home-grown energy,” according to a statement from the UK government. It will include “enhanced cooperation across a range of sectors,” the document said, without providing specifics, and help support jobs related to carbon-capture. Prime Minister Keir Starmer is visiting the Nordic country on Monday.

Britain and Norway have also agreed to work to clear up issues associated with the storage and transport of carbon under the North Sea. The technology allows natural gas to be used for longer, benefitting Norway as a major exporter of the fuel.

The two nations are seeking to bolster their energy and defense ties after the energy crisis that followed the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine transformed the energy picture for Europe. It sent power prices and gas prices soaring — at least temporarily — and led Norway to replace Russia as the largest natural gas to both the European Union and the UK.

The partnership will “make the UK more energy secure, ensuring we are never again exposed to international energy price spikes and the whims of dictators,” Starmer said in the statement.

Starmer and Norwegian Premier Jonas Gahr Store are set to visit the Northern Lights carbon capture project, as well as the Haakonsvern naval base near Bergen. It marks the first official bilateral meeting in Norway for a British Prime Minister since Margaret Thatcher in 1986.

The UK recently signed off on almost £22 billion ($27.9 billion) in spending over 25 years for carbon capture at two sites in Britain. It will will need to spend significantly more to reach its previous goal to capture at least 20 million tons of CO2 by the end of the decade.

Norway’s biggest oil and gas company, Equinor ASA, is also investing in UK offshore wind, new oil and gas fields, as well as carbon capture projects alongside partners like BP Plc.

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