Equinor advancing digital CO2 capture and storage operations at Northern Lights

The collaboration will support Northern Lights, a project aimed at delivering CO2 transport and storage as a service.

Northern Lights, a joint venture co-owned by Equinor, will integrate TGS’ Prediktor Data Gateway into its digital infrastructure. This integration is designed to optimise the management of the entire CO2 value chain – from the receiving terminal to permanent storage.

According to TGS, the platform supports a wide range of critical functions including simulation, capacity planning, CO2 tracking, emissions and financial reporting, permitting, compliance, trading, audits and health and safety.

“This allows Northern Lights to streamline workflows, reduce risk and ensure regulatory alignment – ultimately creating greater transparency,” TGS stated.

“We are thrilled to deepen our collaboration with Equinor to advance carbon capture and storage,” said TGS executive vice president of new energy solutions Will Ashby.

Key operational milestones

Northern Lights reached a significant operational milestone at the end of June with the commissioning of its first custom-built CO2 transport vessel, Northern Pioneer. The vessel successfully completed its first CO2 loading and offloading from Heidelberg Materials in Brevik. The Brevik CCS facility is part of Norway’s Longship programme, which aims to demonstrate the full CCS value chain.

In parallel, sister vessel Northern Pathfinder participated in Longship’s official completion events and is now ready to begin its commissioning phase. Longship is the world’s first cross-border, open-source CO2 transport and storage network, providing European companies access to permanent underground CO2 storage.

Northern Lights has also secured official approval for its Phase 2 Plan for Development and Operation. This milestone will allow the project to expand its CO2 transport and storage capacity from 1.5M tonnes to at least 5.0M tonnes annually.

To date, Northern Lights has signed an agreement with Stockholm Exergi to manage up to 900,000 tonnes of CO2 per year from its Swedish bioenergy facility. This marks the joint venture’s third commercial customer, following previous contracts with Yara in the Netherlands and Ørsted in Denmark.

Northern Lights was established in March 2021 as a partnership between Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies.