The Norwegian Ministry of Energy recently hosted a two-day event to celebrate the launch of Longship, Europe’s first full value chain CCS project. The event also marked the inauguration of the project’s first carbon capture facility which is based at the Brevik cement plant of Heidelberg Materials.

Longship is Norway’s largest climate investment ever and the Norwegian government is supplying approximately NOK 22 billion in grants for construction and operation. The total estimated cost of the project, including ten years of operation, is around NOK 34 billion. The investment is backed by the Norwegian Parliament and aims to develop CO₂ management as a cost-effective climate measure.

In addition to CO₂ capture at Brevik, the project includes the planned facility at Hafslund Celsio’s waste-to-energy plant in Oslo. The goal is to create capacity to capture 400,000 tonnes of CO₂ annually at Brevik and 350,000 tonnes at the Hafslund Celsio plant. The expected start date is in 2029.

The CO₂ is to be transported by ship and safely stored 2,600 meters beneath the seabed at Øygarden, near Bergen. Transport and storage will be managed by Northern Lights – a joint venture between Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies.

Key to the Longship project is that it offers open access to multiple actors. According to a Ministry of Energy statement, Northern Lights has already signed commercial agreements with companies in the Netherlands, Denmark, and Sweden. The statement also confirms the Ministry’s approval of development plans for Northern Lights Phase 2, which will increase storage capacity to over 5 million tonnes per year.

The EU has recognized Northern Lights as a “Project of Common Interest,” enabling €131 million in funding from the Connecting Europe Facility for Energy (CEF Energy).

See also Equinor advancing digital CO2 capture and storage operations at Northern Lights