TotalEnergies and its partners, Equinor and Shell, have announced that the first CO2 volumes were successfully transported by vessel from Heidelberg Materials’ cement factory in Brevik, Norway, to Northern Lights’ facilities in Øygarden. The CO2 was then injected 8530 ft. (2600 m) below the seabed into the storage facilities, 62 miles (100 km) off the coast of Western Norway.
Northern Lights is the world’s first merchant CO2 transportation and storage project. The first phase of the project has a storage capacity of 1.5 MTPA of CO2, which has been fully booked by customers from Norway and Continental Europe. Final Investment Decision of the second phase was announced in March 2025, which will increase the project capacity to more than 5 MTPA of CO2 from 2028 (see “Northern Lights CCS Project Advances To Phase 2,” May 2025 Gas Compression Magazine, p. 42).
The development of CO2 transport and storage services is one of the necessary levers for reducing emissions for European industry. Northern Lights has developed a strong customer base in Norway and continental Europe, with already five industrial customers: Hafslund Celsio and Heidelberg Materials in Norway, Yara in the Netherlands, Ørsted in Denmark, and Stockholm Exergi in Sweden.
“With the start of operations of Northern Lights, we are entering a new phase for the CCS industry in Europe,” said Arnaud Le Foll, senior vice-president new business – carbon neutrality at TotalEnergies. “This industry now moves to reality, offering hard-to-abate sectors a credible and tangible way to reduce CO2 emissions.”
