World’s first third-party CO2 storage facility kicks off in Norway

The world’s first third-party carbon dioxide (CO2) storage facility, Northern Lights, has commenced operations in Norway, marking a significant milestone in large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) in Europe. The project, a joint venture between Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies, successfully completed the first permanent underground injection of CO2 transported from Heidelberg Materials’ cement plant in Brevik. The CO2 was shipped and then piped 62 miles subsea to the Aurora reservoir located about 8,530 feet beneath the Norwegian North Sea seabed, where it is stored safely and permanently. This initial injection finalizes Phase 1 of the project, which has a storage capacity of up to 1.5 million tons of CO2 annually, fully booked by customers, and is part of Norway’s Longship initiative—a government-backed full-scale CCS program. Northern Lights is the world’s first cross-border CO2 transport and storage facility available to third-party emitters, integrating capture,