Northern Lights Alliance submits PDO for first CO2 storage project on Norwegian shelf

The Northern Lights Alliance, with operator Equinor and partners Shell and Total, has submitted a plan for development and operation (PDO) for the first CO₂ storage project on the Norwegian shelf.

The Ministry of Petroleum and Energy (MPE) received the plan, while the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) will process the plan in accordance with the CO₂ storage regulations.

Northern Lights is part of the first Norwegian full-scale project for transport and storage of CO₂ - Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS). The project includes capturing CO₂ from two industrial firms in Eastern Norway and transporting liquid CO₂ to a terminal in Western Norway.

CO₂ will be captured from Fortum’s heat recovery plant at Klementsrud in Oslo and Norcem’s cement factory in Breivik in the municipality of Porsgrunn, and then transported by ship to an intermediate storage location at Kollsnes in the Øygarden municipality.

From there, the liquid CO₂ will be transported in a 100-km long pipeline on the seabed and pumped into a reservoir at a depth of around 2,700 m in the North Sea for permanent storage. The reservoir is in the Johansen formation southwest of Troll field.

The plan for the first phase is to inject 1.5 million tonnes of CO₂ into the Johansen formation. The plan includes flexibility to accommodate expanding the location’s capacity, and one objective is to be able to offer the site as a storage location for CO₂ from other European countries.

State support is a precondition for the project. In January 2019, Northern Lights was awarded the first exploitation license for injection and storage of CO₂. The awarded area lies near Troll field in the North Sea.

In December 2019, drilling started on an exploration well to identify suitable reservoirs for CO₂ storage. The well proved sandstone with properties well-suited for a CO₂ storage location. (OGJ Online, Mar. 5, 2020). 

The reservoir is filled with water, and there has never been any oil or gas production from this part of the formation.

Elsewhere in Norway, CO₂ has been removed from the Sleipner Vest gas and injected in the Utsira Formation since 1996. Around one million tonnes of CO₂ are stored in the subsurface every year. Since 2007, around 700,000 tonnes of CO₂ have also been stored each year on Snøhvit field.

The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate has mapped areas that are suitable for safe and secure long-term storage. Estimates indicate, in theory, that the reservoir volume on the shelf is sufficient to accommodate more than 80 billion tonnes of CO_2.