Aker Solutions has bagged a contract to deliver equipment for the subsea infrastructure pertaining to the Northern Lights project of Equinor, Shell and Total.
Image: Illustration of Northern Lights project. Photo: courtesy of Equinor.
The Northern Lights project is a carbon capture and storage (CCS) project that is being developed on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS). The objective of the project is to develop a first-of-its-kind storage facility that can receive CO2 from various industrial sources.
The Northern Lights project will feature a CO2 receiving terminal, an offshore pipeline, injection and CO2 storage.
Under its contract, Aker Solutions will supply equipment for an early well development as a call-off from the Equinor framework agreement it had signed in December 2017.
The Northern Lights project will be based on capture of CO2 from two likely capture sites – Fortum Oslo Varme’s waste-to-energy facility in Oslo and Norcem’s cement factory in Brevik. Aker Solutions has been working at the locations on the front-end engineering and design (FEED) of a carbon capture plant.
The captured CO2 liquid will be transported by ship from the capture sites to a new CO2 receiving terminal at Naturgassparken in Øygarden. The shipped CO2 will be injected into an appropriate offshore geological storage complex through subsea injection wells and an offshore pipeline from the CO2 receiving terminal.
Aker Solutions CEO Luis Araujo said: “Carbon capture and storage plays an essential role in the industry’s efforts to contribute to achievement of the Paris climate goals.
“We will leverage our extensive experience with CCS technologies on this project in our joint effort to reduce emissions.”
In November 2017, KBR was given the concept and FEED contract from Equinor to develop the onshore CO2 storage terminal in Norway for the Northern Lights Project.
The first phase of the CO2 storage terminal will enable storage for up to 1.5 million tons of CO2 per year. The project has been designed to accommodate further expansion to receive additional CO2 volumes, with the objective of stimulating new commercial carbon capture projects across Norway, Europe and other countries in the world.