This is the second time that acreage is awarded for CO2 storage pursuant to the CO2 Storage Regulations.

The first awards were through the Longship project in 2019. Now the Northern Lights company is well under way with its work to develop infrastructure for the storage part of Longship.

"We're experiencing significant interest in storing CO2 on the Norwegian shelf," says Erik Rundell, Assistant Director for technology, analysis and coexistence in the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD).

This award shows that CO2 storage is relevant for traditional energy companies as well as new players in an offshore activity that requires different business models than oil and gas projects.

"The access to large volumes of data from 50 years of petroleum activities is a crucial factor for succeeding in this new industry," says Rundell.

The award in the North Sea is offered to Equinor ASA, whilst the permit in the Barents Sea is offered to a group including Equinor ASA, Horisont Energi AS and Vår Energi AS.

Click here to read the work program (pdf)

Press release from the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy

Significant storage capacity

The NPD started the effort to define potential storage locations for CO2 on the Norwegian shelf more than ten years ago. This effort resulted in an CO2 atlas which shows that it could be possible to store more than 80 billion tonnes of CO2 on the shelf. This is the erundquivalent of more than 1 000 years of current Norwegian CO2 emissions.

The CO2 Storage Regulations

Regulation No. 1517 of 5 December 2014 relating to exploitation of subsea reservoirs on the continental shelf for storage of CO2 and relating to transport of CO2 on the continental shelf.

More information

Permits for carbon storage in 2021

Carbon storage