Five companies in line for carbon storage acreage in Norway’s waters

The Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has received applications from five companies seeking permits related to the injection and storage of CO2 on the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS).

The area is located in the North Sea and was announced on 11 January in accordance with the storage regulations. The Norwegian ministry reported that it had received applications from five companies by the time the application deadline expired on 22 February.

The companies that have applied for the acreage are Equinor, Neptune Energy Norway, Storegga Norge, Sval Energi and Wintershall Dea Norge.

The ministry is now set to process the received applications with an aim to allocate land according to the storage regulations during the first half of the year.

“The great interest in CO2 storage on the NCS is gratifying. The fact that we regularly receive applications to advertise areas and to store CO2 in these areas shows that our allocation policy is working as intended,” Terje Aasland, Norwegian Minister of Petroleum and Energy, said.

To remind, Neptune Energy, Sval Energi and Storegga announced at the end of last month that they had submitted an application for the Trudvang CO2 storage project in the Norwegian North Sea.

The project envisages the capture of CO2 by multiple industrial emitters in Northern Europe and the UK, the shipping of liquid CO2 from export terminals to an onshore receiving terminal in the south-west of Norway, and then transport via a purpose-built pipeline to the Trudvang location for injection and permanent storage.

So far, four permits for CO2 storage have been awarded on the Norwegian continental shelf – three in the North Sea and one in the Barents Sea.

In the previous round related to the allocation of licenses for the injection and storage of CO2, the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy received applications from six companies. The aim is to allocate the acreage during the first half of 2023.