Northern Lights CCS Project Stores First CO2 Below Seabed off Norway

(Credit: Northern Lights)

TotalEnergies and its partners, Equinor and Shell, have injected the first CO2 volumes 2,600 meters below the seabed off the coast of Western Norway as part of Northern Lights carbon capture and storage (CCS) project.

The first CO2 volumes were transported by vessel from Heidelberg Materials’ cement factory in Brevik, Norway to Northern Lights’ facilities in Øygarden, before being injected into the storage facilities 100 km off the coast of 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 Mt CO2/year, 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 Mt CO2/year from 2028.

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.

Northern Lights will transport and store CO2 from Norway during the remainder of 2025 with CO2 volumes from Denmark and the Netherlands expected to be added in 2026.  

“With the start of operations of Northern Lights, we are entering a new phase for the CCS industry in Europe. This industry now moves to reality, offering hard-to-abate sectors a credible and tangible way to reduce CO2 emissions,” said Arnaud Le Foll, Senior Vice-President New Business - Carbon Neutrality at TotalEnergies.