The Northern Lights CCS project represents a significant milestone in the pilot phase of the open-access CCS initiative. The Northern Lights system comprises the transport and storage components of the Norwegian Longship project, which encompasses the entire CCS process, including carbon capture. This CCS chain collects and transports CO2 from Greenland, Oslo, and Sweden to the intermediate storage site in the municipality of Øygarden in western Norway. From there, CO2 is injected through a 100 km pipeline to an offshore saline aquifer storage located 2,600 metres below the seabed.

In its initial phase, the full-scale Norwegian Government Project will be capable of storing 1.5 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) of CO2 at the Aurora storage site. The capacity at Aurora will be increased in response to demand.

The engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) process for the Northern Lights project is nearly complete, with injection scheduled to begin this year. For initial operations, Northern Lights has reserved a total capacity of 0.8 million tonnes of CO2 per year for the Heidelberg Materials cement factory in Brevik and the Hafslund Oslo Celsio waste-to-energy plant.

Managing CCS projects is complex and unique. The engineering, procurement, and construction successes from this project could provide valuable lessons for other CCS initiatives. A key aspect of offshore CCS is the design and installation of pipeline transport systems. As the first offshore commercial CCS project, Northern Lights has successfully completed the installation of its pipeline transport system.

The Asia CCUS Network (ACN) Secretariat considers the lessons learned from the design and installation of the Northern Lights pipeline transport system to be highly relevant for stakeholders in Asia. To share the benefits of the Northern Lights project, the ACN Secretariat has proposed a knowledge-sharing session focused on lessons learned from the design and installation of pipeline transport systems. This session will cover topics such as design basis determination, material selection, risk identification, risk mitigation, installation, commissioning, operation, and the associated technical challenges.

Subsea 7 was one of the EPC contractors involved in delivering the Northern Lights CCS project. The company was awarded a contract by Equinor for the engineering, fabrication, and installation of a 100 km CO2 pipeline running from Øygarden to the CO2 storage complex, as well as for the installation of umbilicals, tie-ins, and pre-commissioning activities. Offshore operations were successfully executed in 2022 and 2023.

At the 18th Knowledge Sharing Conference, Mr. Stian Sande of Subsea 7 will share lessons learned from the execution of the pipeline and umbilicals EPC contract.