About the Longship project

Northern Lights is responsible for developing and operating CO2 transport and storage facilities, open to third parties, as part of Longship, the Norwegian Government’s full-scale carbon capture and storage project. It will be the first ever cross-border, open-source CO2 transport and storage infrastructure network and offers companies across Europe the opportunity to store their CO2 safely and permanently underground. Phase one of the project will be ready to receive CO2 in 2024 with a storage capacity of up to 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year.

Longship includes capturing CO2 from industrial sources in the Oslo-fjord region (cement and waste-to-energy) and shipping liquid CO2 from these industrial capture sites to an onshore terminal on the Norwegian west coast. From there, the liquefied CO2 will be transported by pipeline to an offshore storage location subsea in the North Sea, for permanent storage. Northern Lights is responsible for the transport and storage components of the project.

The Longship project reflects the Norwegian Government’s ambition to develop a full-scale CCS value chain in Norway, demonstrating the potential of this decarbonisation approach to Europe and the world. The Norwegian Government has demonstrated strong, long-standing leadership in realising full scale CCS. With support of the Norwegian Government, Northern Lights can provide realistic decarbonisation opportunities for Norwegian and European industries.

The government issued feasibility studies on capture, transport and storage solutions in 2016. Combined, these studies showed the feasibility of putting together the pieces of the value chain and realising a full-scale CCS project.

Based on this outcome, the government decided to continue development through an agreement covering concept and FEED (front-end engineering and design) studies. Gassnova represents the Norwegian state and acts as the coordinating body. The studies covered:

  • Capture of CO2  at the Heidelberg Materials (previously Norcem) cement factory in Brevik.
  • Capture of CO2  at the waste-to-energy plant Hafslund Oslo Celsio in Oslo.
  • A combined transport and storage solution, managed by Northern Lights JV DA.

Part of the Longship mandate is to transparently share knowledge and experience on CO2 management. Gassnova regularly publishes project updates and reports from the Longship project on its website CCS Norway. Find more information here. 

Longship value chain Northern Lights scope EN (1)

The Longship CCS value chain

The pre-project (concept and FEED studies) was governed by a study agreement between Gassnova and Equinor. A collaboration agreement between Equinor, Shell and Total governed the study and execution preparation work and the preparations for establishing a Joint Venture Agreement. In May 2020, the three companies took an investment decision, based on information on the quality and capacity of the reservoir acquired in the drilling of the “Eos” confirmation well in early 2020, and a commercial agreement with the state.

Following a historic vote in parliament, the Norwegian Government in December 2020 took its funding decision and named the project Longship.