Equinor has handed out Nkr640M (US$74M) in contracts for its transformational Northern Lights project offshore Norway
This is the world’s first carbon capture project to pump emissions from industrial sources in Norway into an offshore reservoir. A 100-km pipeline will transport CO2 from an intermediate storage site at Energiparken in Øygarden to the injection well on the Oseberg A platform in the North Sea.
Equinor has awarded a Nkr500M (US$57.5M) contract to Subsea 7 for fabrication, pipelaying and subsea installations. This contract is for engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) of the 100-km pipeline and installation of a 36-km umbilical to connect the injection well to the Oseberg A platform, from which the subsea injection facilities will be operated.
Project management and engineering will be conducted at Subsea 7’s office at Forus, Norway, while pipe fabrication will be completed at the Vigra spool base near Ålesund, Norway. Subsea 7 has started planning and engineering. Equinor expects the main offshore operations will be carried out during 2022-2023.
Equinor also awarded a Nkr140M (US$16.1M) EPCI contract to Aibel for the Northern Lights subsea control system on Oseberg A as a call-off against the existing Oseberg portfolio agreement signed in July 2020. Aibel will undertake all necessary upgrades on Oseberg A to pull in and operate the umbilical system that will connect this platform with the Northern Lights subsea facilities. Prefabrication will take place at the Haugesund yard, while project management and engineering will be performed at Aibel’s offices in Bergen and Stavanger, both in Norway.
“The Northern Lights project is the first of its kind offering a solution to cut emissions from Europe,” said Equinor project director for Northern Lights Sverre Overå, “Work has started at the site and with these important contracts in place, we are ensuring the project progresses according to plan in order to deliver a key part of the important Longship project.”
Equinor chief procurement officer Peggy Krantz-Underland said most contracts for Northern Lights were now in place including contracts for Aker Solutions for the CO2 receiving facilities outside Bergen and subsea equipment for injecting captured CO2 into a reservoir for permanent storage.
The subsea segment of Aker Solution’s contract, valued at Nkr250M (US$28M), involves engineering, procurement and construction of subsea equipment for Equinor, with installation anticipated in 2023. The scope includes delivering one subsea tree, one wellhead, one flow base and control systems. The contract also includes options for equipment for future wells.
According to Equinor, Northern Lights includes capacity to transport, inject and store up to 1.5M tonnes of CO2 per year. Once the CO2 is captured onshore, it will be transported by newly designed ships, injected and permanently stored 2,600 m below the seabed of the North Sea.
Funding for the project was approved by the Norwegian Parliament on 14 December 2020 with the facilities scheduled to be operational in 2024.
Plans exist to increase the capacity to 5M tonnes per year through additional phases of development and an increasing customer base.
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