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Longship CCS enters operation as Norwegian government gives green light to expansion of Northern Lights’ carbon storage capacity
25/6/2025
News
Norway’s Longship carbon capture and storage (CCS) project has entered operation. At the same time, the Norwegian government has approved the development plant for Phase 2 of Northern Lights, the transport, reception and storage part of the Longship project, which will increase carbon storage capacity to over 5mn t/y.
Longship is described as Norway’s largest climate investment ever and also Europe’s first complete CCS value chain. The project includes the capture of 400,000 t/y of CO2 at Heidelberg Materials’ cement plant in Brevik and 350,000 t/y from the planned facility at Hafslund Celsio’s waste-to-energy plant in Oslo, beginning in 2029. The CO2 is transported by ship to the Northern Lights’ Øygarden facility, near Bergen, and stored 2,600 metres beneath the seabed in the Aurora reservoir on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Northern Lights is managed by a joint venture of Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies.
The first shipment of CO2 was transported from the Brevik cement plant to Øygarden earlier this month. The CO2 has now been transferred to storage tanks, and injection into the subsea reservoir is scheduled to begin in August.
Longship is the first project in the world to integrate the entire CCS chain – from capture to transport and storage – with open access for multiple players. The Northern Lights consortium has already signed commercial agreements with Yara (Netherlands), Ørsted (Denmark) and Stockholm Exergi (Sweden). For more information about the project, see also ‘On the horizon: Norwegian CCUS vision soon to be made real’.
In the first phase, 1.5mn tonnes of CO2 will be stored annually. The Norwegian Ministry of Energy has also approved the development plan for Northern Lights Phase 2, which will increase the capacity to over 5mn t/y. This makes Longship a key component of Europe’s climate strategy, according to the project partners. The EU has recognised Northern Lights as a ‘Project of Common Interest’, enabling €131mn in funding from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).
‘Longship demonstrates that it is possible to cut emissions from the industry and waste in a safe and effective way. This is a technological breakthrough and a milestone in Norway’s climate efforts. We have built a complete value chain for CO2 management that will have significant impact far beyond our borders,’ said Norway’s Minister of Energy Terje Aasland.
