Northern Lights preliminarily confirms 5-million tpy storage capacity

Nov. 11, 2022
Northern Lights JV DA concluded drilling operations for a CO2 injection well and a contingent injection well within its CO2 storage license EL001 in the North Sea about 70 km west of Bergen.

Northern Lights JV DA concluded drilling operations for a CO2 injection well and a contingent injection well within its CO2 storage license EL001 in the North Sea about 70 km west of Bergen. Drilling began in August using the Transocean Enabler semisubmersible rig.

Preliminary results confirm the storage capacity of at least 5 million tonnes CO2/year, sufficient for the first two phases of the project, said Børre Jacobsen, managing director, Northern Lights, in a Nov. 11 release (OGJ Online, Mar. 24, 2022). To utilize the capacity, the JV will need to drill additional injection wells.

In 2020, Northern Lights drilled the first CO2 exploration well that confirmed that the reservoir in the Johansen formation, at 2,600 m depth, is suitable for safe and permanent CO2 storage.

Northern Lights is a registered and incorporated general partnership with shared liability (DA) owned by Equinor Energy AS, Shell plc, and TotalEnergies SE. It is developing the world’s first open-source CO2 transport and storage infrastructure.

Equinor managed drilling operations on EL001 on behalf of Northern Lights.

About the Author

Alex Procyk | Upstream Editor

Alex Procyk is Upstream Editor at Oil & Gas Journal. He has also served as a principal technical professional at Halliburton and as a completion engineer at ConocoPhillips. He holds a BS in chemistry (1987) from Kent State University and a PhD in chemistry (1992) from Carnegie Mellon University. He is a member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).