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Major emitter in Northern Lights project launches CCS storage facility
15/9/2026
News
Chemicals firm Yara has officially inaugurated what it calls Europe’s largest carbon capture facility at its Sluiskil, Netherlands site. The 800,000t/y facility liquefies and stores CO2 until it can be shipped north across the North Sea to Øygarden, Norway, for storage under the seabed, as part of the Northern Lights carbon capture and storage (CCS) project.
Yara was outside of the two original carbon-generating sites selected for offtake as part of the Northern Lights programme. The first to start up was Heidelberg Materials’ Brevik, Norway, cement factory, producing up to 400,000t/y. The second is the Hafslund Celsio waste-to-energy plant in Oslo whose 350,000t/y carbon capture plant was delayed by cost negotiations and only started construction earlier this year; it is now planned to be operational in 2029.
In addition, contracts have also been signed with Swedish district heating company Stockholm Exergi for the storage of up to 900,000t/y for 15 years from 2028, with Ørsted for 430,000t/y from the Asnaes biomass power station in Denmark, and for 7,000t/y from Oslo, Norway, wastewater treatment with carbon removal partner Inherit, in a pilot project which began earlier in 2026.
The first phase of Northern Lights was to develop facilities to provide carbon capture of 1.5mn t/y. In 2025, owners of the joint venture Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies agreed to invest NOK7.5bn (€698mn), alongside €131mn of EU public money, to increase its capacity to 5mn t/y to be operational in 2028. Over the last six months, two CO2 carriers have been commissioned, taking the operation to its full complement of four. As part of phase two, larger ships will be added to the fleet from 2028.
Present at the Yara launch was Wopke Hoekstra, European Commissioner for Climate, Net Zero and Clean Growth. He said: ‘Europe needs practical climate solutions that deliver real emissions reductions while strengthening industrial competitiveness. The carbon capture and storage project at Sluiskil shows what is possible when innovation and cross-border cooperation come together. This is exactly the kind of project Europe needs to combine climate ambition with a strong and resilient industrial base.’
Elsewhere, Ross Brown, Global Policy Lead for CCS at Shell, reflected on the project. ‘Norway, where Northern Lights is based, has two key advantages: significant CO2 storage capacity and a clear political commitment to adopting CCS. Through the Longship Project – Europe’s first full value chain for capturing, transporting and storing industrial CO2 – the Norwegian government funded the initial infrastructure and backed the first two emitters… This strong government support and advocacy naturally created the conditions for commercialisation, allowing the joint venture partners to move into later phases and attract additional customers. The broader lesson here is that establishing early CCS value chains can help unlock commercial markets.’
