First CO2 volumes injected at Northern Lights

Equinor and the Northern Lights Joint Venture have injected and successfully stored the first CO2 volumes in the Aurora reservoir beneath the North Sea, completing phase 1 of the Northern Lights development.

• Main announcement: The first CO₂ volumes have been injected and successfully stored in the Aurora reservoir 2.600 meters under the seabed; phase 1 has a total capacity of 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year (mtpa) and this capacity is fully booked. CO2 is shipped from Heidelberg Materials’ cement factory in Brevik, offloaded at the Øygarden facility, transported via a 100-kilometer pipeline and injected offshore.
• Background and next steps: The Northern Lights JV is equally owned by Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies, with Equinor as Technical Service Provider (TSP) responsible for construction and operations. In March a final investment decision was made for phase 2, which will increase capacity to a minimum of 5 million tonnes CO2 per year, enabled by an agreement to transport and store up to 900,000 tonnes CO2 annually from Stockholm Exergi and a grant from the Connecting Europe Facility for Energy (CEF Energy). Phase 2 work includes additional onshore storage tanks, a new jetty and additional injection wells; nine new CO2 storage tanks were delivered at the Øygarden site this summer. Equinor states an ambition of 30-50 million tonnes per annum by 2035.