The Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has announced that it is to provide funding for front-end engineering and design studies for a carbon capture and storage project at Norcem’s cement plant in Brevik, in the country’s south. Additionally, the Ministry may also provide funding for similar work for a facility owned by Fortum Oslo Varme, which provides district heating and power in Oslo. Further information must be received and considered by the Ministry before the latter funding is granted. The decision to fund at least one of the projects has been taken in spite of analysis from two external quality assurers, Atkins and Oslo Economics, who said they could not recommend the projects until further work had been done to “demonstrate probable co-benefits” – i.e. that deployment of CCS at these facilities would help to foster CCS more widely across Europe and further abroad.