Equinor Hires ABL to Support Northern Lights CCS Expansion

(Credit: Northern Lights JV)

Energy and marine consultancy ABL has secured a contract by Equinor to provide marine warranty survey (MWS) services to the Northern Lights Phase 2 carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Norway.

The Northern Lights project is part of the Norwegian full-scale CCS project Longship and based on Gassnova SF’s design basis with transport and storage of an annual volume of 1.5 Mt/y CO2.

As part of the full-scale project, Northern Lights will receive liquid CO2 from customers with carbon capture and liquification facilities. Unallocated capacity will be made available for CO2 from other national and international capture sites.

Equinor and its partners in Northern Lights JV have completed the first phase of Northern Lights’ CO2 transport and storage infrastructure. With operations started in the summer of 2025, Northern Lights is now expanding to a minimum of five million tonnes annual storage capacity with a commercially based investment to meet growing demand from European industries.

Under the terms of the contract, ABL’s Norway operations, based in Stavanger, will provide marine verification and warranty services with site attendances and marine surveys to support the construction of the CO2 transport and storage expansion. ABL will also deliver technical document review and approval of all project and procedural documentation for warranted operations.

ABL’s Norwegian operation will start its work scope early 2026, and the work will continue through to 2027.

“This is an important climate initiative that any industry player would be proud to be part of. Northern Lights is an important milestone in energy transition of Norway and Europe and offers an open-source facility to decarbonize hard to abate industrial emitters.

“We have delivered marine warranty survey support to clients on the Norwegian continental shelf since the 1980s and look forward to applying this competence to this exciting project too,” said Subbi Nookala, ABL’s country manager in Norway.