Development and operation plan handed in for Northern Lights expansion

Some five days after taking the final investment decision (FID), Northern Lights joint venture (JV) partners Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies have submitted the plan for development and operation (PDO) to the Norwegian Ministry of Energy for the expansion of the namesake CO2 transport and storage development.

The partners announced on March 27 the FID for the expansion project which will increase transport and storage capacity to a minimum of 5 million tons CO2 per year, following the signing of a commercial agreement to transport and store up to 900,000 tons CO2 from Stockholm Exergi annually.

The expansion is enabled by a grant from the Connecting Europe Facility for Energy (CEF Energy) funding scheme.

“It is a great pleasure that Northern Lights chooses to invest in increased storage capacity for CO2 in Norway. This is a major expansion that will provide a new momentum in large-scale CO2 storage on the Norwegian shelf,” said Norway’s Minister of Energy Terje Aasland.

The first phase of Northern Lights is part of the Longship full-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, initiated by the Norwegian government and designed to demonstrate large-scale CO2 capture, transport, and storage. Northern Lights focuses on the transport and storage aspects.

Captured and liquefied CO2 from customers’ sites is transported by ship to the onshore receiving terminal at Øygarden, then further transported via pipeline to a storage in a reservoir 2,600 meters under the North Sea seabed.

The official opening ceremony of the CO2 transport and storage facility in Øygarden, near Bergen, was conducted by Aasland on September 26, 2024, signaling the facility’s readiness to receive and store CO2.

With the first phase of the project completed, fully booked and ready to receive CO2 from industrial emitters, the Northern Lights JV partners are progressing with the second phase, which is set to leverage existing onshore and offshore infrastructures in Øygarden, expanded with a new quay, more storage tanks and increased pumping capacity, and the number of offshore injection wells doubled from two to four.

The PDO for the first phase was approved by the Ministry of Energy in February 2021 and operations are scheduled to start in Q3 2025. The second phase is expected to be completed for a start-up by the second half of 2028.

Equinor, acting as the technical service provider (TSP) for the project, awarded Subsea7 and Aker Solutions with contracts for the expansion.