TotalEnergies & partners complete world’s first commercial CCS facility in Norway

TotalEnergies and its partners, Equinor and Shell, announce the completion of the CO2 receiving and storage facilities of Northern Lights Joint-Venture in Norway. The facilities consist in a terminal that will receive CO2 cargos, a 100 km subsea pipeline for CO2 transportation to the offshore storage location, and subsea injection facilities for safe and permanent CO2 storage in a reservoir 2,600 metres below the seabed.

Northern Lights is now ready to receive and permanently store CO2 from European industries, with first CO2 injection expected in 2025. Developing CO2 transportation and storage services is one of the necessary levers to reduce emissions and a realistic decarbonisation solution for European industry.

Northern Lights is the world’s first commercial CO2 transportation and storage project. The first phase of the project was supported by the Norwegian government and has a capacity of 1.5 Mt CO2/year, which has been fully booked by customers in Norway and Continental Europe. Studies are under way for a capacity expansion to more than 5 Mt CO2/y in a second phase.

“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”, said Terje Aasland, Norwegian Minister of Energy.

“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”, highlighted Tim Heijn, Managing Director of Northern Lights JV.

“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 was established in 2017. 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 decarbonisation of European industry”, said Arnaud Le Foll, Senior Vice-President New Business - Carbon Neutrality at TotalEnergies.

“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”, added Grete Tveit, Senior Vice President Low Carbon Solutions at Equinor.

“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”, said Anna Mascolo, Executive Vice President, Shell Low Carbon Solutions.