Equinor has been awarded the operation contracts for the development of two new CO2 storage facilities in the North Sea. The new licences are important building blocks for developing the Norwegian Continental Shelf into a leading area for CO2 storage in Europe.
On 20 June, Norway’s ministry of Energy announced the award of new CO2 storage licences. Equinor was awarded operatorships and a 100 % share for the two licences referred to as Albondigas and Kinno. Each is expected to have the capacity to store around 5 million tonnes of CO2 per year when in operation. This estimate will be more accurately determined in the exploration phase.
Equinor expects 4-8 % real base project returns for its early phase CO2 storage business, and further value uplift potential when commercial markets are developed. The award adds to Equinor’s ambitions to develop more storage licences in the North Sea in the coming years.
Equinor is maturing a ship-based solution as well as a large pipeline to connect industrial emissions in Europe with storage opportunities on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. The planned pipeline, named CO2 Highway Europe, will have the capacity to transport 25 – 35 million tonnes of CO2 per year from Belgium and France.
The Smeaheia storage licence, awarded to Equinor in 2022, is the anchor storage for this pipeline development and Albondigas and Kinno will be additional storage opportunities that can be connected.
Equinor is also about to complete the first phase of the Northern Lights CO2 transport and storage facility together with Shell and Total Energies. The facility will be ready to receive CO2 by the second half of this year.
“Scale-up of CO2 transport and storage is essential to meet the interest and demand for this type of services. Gaining access to more CO2 storage capacity aligns well with our ambition of having 30 to 50 million tonnes of CO2 transport and storage capacity per year by 2035,” says Tveit.
