TotalEnergies, Equinor and Shell Successfully Transport and Store CO2 in Norway's Northern Lights Project

TotalEnergies and its partners, Equinor and Shell, have successfully transported and stored the first CO2 volumes from a Norwegian cement factory in Brevik to the Northern Lights facilities in Øygarden. The project, the world's first merchant CO2 transportation and storage project, has a capacity of 1.5 Mt CO2/year and has been fully booked by customers from Norway and Continental Europe. The second phase of the project, with a capacity of over 5 Mt CO2/year, is set to begin in 2028.

TotalEnergies and its partners, Equinor and Shell, have successfully transported and stored the first CO2 volumes from a Norwegian cement factory in Brevik to the Northern Lights facilities in Øygarden. This marks a significant milestone in the global effort to combat climate change through carbon capture and storage (CCS).

The Northern Lights project, the world's first merchant CO2 transportation and storage project, has a capacity of 1.5 Mt CO2/year and has been fully booked by customers from Norway and Continental Europe. The project involves transporting CO2 from Heidelberg Materials’ cement plant in Brevik via ship to Northern Lights’ storage facilities in Øygarden, where it is injected into the Aurora reservoir located approximately 8,530 feet (2,600 meters) beneath the seabed of the Norwegian North Sea [1].

Anders Opedal, CEO of Equinor, stated, "With CO2 safely stored below the seabed, we mark a major milestone. This demonstrates the viability of carbon capture, transport, and storage as a scalable industry" [3]. The project is supported by a USD 153 million grant from the Connecting Europe Facility for Energy (CEF Energy) [1].

The second phase of the project, which is expected to begin in 2028, will significantly increase the project's capacity to more than 5 Mt CO2/year. This expansion will build on existing infrastructure to accommodate higher injection rates and volumes [1].

Northern Lights is a joint venture between Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies, with Equinor acting as the Technical Service Provider (TSP) for the joint venture. The project is part of Longship, the Norwegian government's flagship initiative for developing a full-scale CCS value chain [2].

This development underscores the importance of CCS in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and decarbonizing European industry. As TotalEnergies' Senior Vice-President New Business - Carbon Neutrality, Arnaud Le Foll, noted, "This industry now moves to reality, offering hard-to-abate sectors a credible and tangible way to reduce CO2 emissions" [2].

References

[1] Interesting Engineering. "10 million EVs could be powered by lithium hidden in one year of US mine waste." Retrieved from [https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/worlds-first-co2-storage-injects-carbon](https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/worlds-first-co2-storage-injects-carbon).

[2] Stock Titan. "Norway first CO2 storage in Northern Esf78jkxgel5." Retrieved from [https://www.stocktitan.net/news/TTE/norway-first-co2-storage-in-northern-esf78jkxgel5.html](https://www.stocktitan.net/news/TTE/norway-first-co2-storage-in-northern-esf78jkxgel5.html).

[3] Equinor. "First CO2 volumes stored at Northern Lights." Retrieved from [https://www.equinor.com/news/20250825-first-co2-volumes-stored-at-northern-lights](https://www.equinor.com/news/20250825-first-co2-volumes-stored-at-northern-lights).