Equinor, along with its partners Total, Gassnova and Gassco have modified the facility to facilitate the study of CO2 transport as gas and liquid

Image

Prime minister Erna Solberg (right) and Sophie Hildebrand, Chief Technology Officer in Equinor. (Credit: Ole Jørgen Bratland)

A large-scale CO2 transport test facility has been officially opened by the Norway Prime Minister Erna Solberg at Equinor’s research centre in Porsgrunn.

The facility is aimed at knowing more about the behaviour of CO2 during pipeline transport, which is crucial for future scale up, transport and storage of CO2, said the company.

Norway Prime Minister Erna Solberg said: “The work you do here is an important contribution to the government’s strategy for carbon capture and storage.”

Previously, Equinor has transported CO2 from the Sleipner field in the North Sea, and from the Snøhvit facility in Hammerfest, where the CO2 is transported in gas and liquid form, respectively. The company has gained important information about CO2 transport.

The company, along with its partners Total, Gassnova and Gassco have modified the facility to facilitate the study of CO2 transport as gas and liquid, simultaneously.

The resultant knowledge will be useful for determining where a pipeline route could be laid, and which reservoirs could be utilised, said the company.

Also, the testing and research would improve operation of the CO2 transport and storage project Northern Lights and reduce the costs related to new industry in the future.

Investment of $104m made in building the test facility

Constructed in 1997, the test facility has been used to test the transport of various combinations of oil, gas and water in the same pipeline.

Equinor said that the test facility has been developed with a total of more than NOK1bn ($104m) investment, including construction and adaptations.

The test facility features pipes that run in a 200m line and is claimed to be the world’s largest test facility for CO2 transport.

Equinor chief technology officer Sophie Hildebrand said: “This shows how infrastructure and competence from the oil and gas industry can be used to accelerate efforts to capture CO2 and store it in reservoir. This is an opportunity to create a new industry in Norway.”