World's First Commercial CO2 Storage Facility Now Operational in North Sea

Aug 25, 2025

The world’s first third-party CO2 transport and storage facility is now operational, marking a significant milestone in Europe’s efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Northern Lights project has successfully injected and stored its first volumes of carbon dioxide 2,600 meters beneath the North Sea seabed.

The operation involves transporting CO2 via ships from Heidelberg Materials cement factory in Brevik to an onshore receiving terminal at Øygarden. From there, the carbon dioxide travels through a 100-kilometer pipeline before being injected into the Aurora reservoir under the North Sea.

“With CO2 safely stored below the seabed, we mark a major milestone. This demonstrates the viability of carbon capture, transport and storage as a scalable industry,” said Anders Opedal, CEO of Equinor.

The Northern Lights Joint Venture is equally owned by Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies, with Equinor serving as the Technical Service Provider responsible for construction and operations of the facilities.

“Lifting new value chains like CO2 capture, transport and storage requires collaboration and effort across the value chain - from governments, industry and customers,” said Irene Rummelhoff, Executive Vice President of MMP in Equinor. “With Northern Lights in operation, we have proven that this is possible.”

The recently completed Phase 1 of the project has a capacity of 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year, which is already fully booked. A Phase 2 expansion, approved in March, will increase capacity to a minimum of 5 million tonnes per year, supported by a €131 million grant from the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility for Energy funding program.

The Norwegian government has provided substantial financial backing for the initiative, covering approximately 80% of the cost for Phase 1 of the project. The expansion is already underway, with nine new CO2 storage tanks delivered to the Øygarden site this summer.

As one of the world’s largest carbon capture and storage developers, Equinor aims to develop 30-50 million tonnes per annum of CO2 transport and storage capacity by 2035, with projects planned across Europe and the United States.