Award of exploitation permit for CO2 storage

In the Northern Lights project, Equinor and partners Shell and Total will carry out a feasibility study for a CO2 storage facility. This is part of a full-scale pilot project for CO2 capture and storage.

The awarded area is located south of the Troll field in the North Sea.

“This is the first time the authorities award an exploitation permit for injection and storage of CO₂, and this is an important project for initiating carbon capture and storage (CCS) both nationally and internationally,” says Eva Halland, the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate’s coordinator for CO2 storage.

The authorities announced the relevant area on 5 July 2018. State Secretary Ingvil Smines Tybring-Gjedde (Progress Party) said then that the announcement is a specific follow-up of the Government’s ambitions for full-scale CCS in Norway, and is important regarding the storage part of the equation.

The ambition is to realise a cost-effective solution for full-scale CCS in Norway, assuming that this yields technology development in an international perspective, cf. Prop. 85 S (2017-2018).

Equinor and its partners in the Northern Lights project were the only applicants when the deadline expired.

In September 2018, the Northern Lights project submitted its application for permission to inject and store CO2 in the subsurface on the Norwegian Shelf. From the left: Diego Alejandro Vazquez Anzola (Shell) Laurence Pinturier (Total), Per Gunnar Stavland (Equinor), Eva Halland (NPD) and Wenche Tjelta Johansen.