Norwegian government to continue funding Longship CCS in 2025

The Norwegian government will continue to fund the Longship carbon capture, transport, and storage (CCS) project in 2025 with a proposed allocation of 2.1 billion NOK in the state budget.

The project is designed to demonstrate the capture of CO_₂ from industrial sources, as well as its safe transport and storage. CO_₂ will be captured at Heidelberg Materials' cement factory and Hafslund Oslo Celsio's waste incineration plant, then it will be liquefied and collected by ships. It will then be transported to an intermediate storage facility in Øygarden northwest of Bergen, before it is pumped through pipes to the Norwegian Continental Shelf, where it will be stored 2,600 meters below the seabed.

Initial storage capacity is 1.5 million tonnes/year (tpy) of CO_₂, while the pipe from the onshore facility to the reservoir is dimensioned for 5 million tonnes. Northern Lights, which is responsible for the transport and storage part of Longship, plans to increase storage capacity to 5 million tpy through an additional development phase (Phase 2) and an increasing customer base. The Northern Lights project consists of a receiving terminal, injection pipeline, and subsea installations (OGJ Online, Sept 26, 2024).

The total cost-allocation for Longship is about 30 billion NOK and the state's share of the costs is estimated to be about 20 billion NOK.

A large part of the full-scale project for CCS in Norway is expected to be completed in 2025.

Heidelberg Materials is expected to start capturing CO2 from the cement factory in Brevik in 2025, while the transport and storage project for Northern Lights in Øygarden is currently ready to receive CO₂.