29.02.2024
Status Longship February 2024
The Longship project is advancing and scheduled to be operational next year. As the first value chain in Europe, capturing, transporting and storing CO2 for climate purposes. This will be a huge milestone in combating climate change.
The history
The Longship project (.pdf) is the Norwegian Government’s name of the initiative to develop a full-scale CCS value chain in Norway. Demonstrating the potential of CCS to Europe and the world. A carbon capture facility is currently being built at Heidelberg Materials’ cement plant in Brevik, Norway. Hafslund Oslo Celsio started building a carbon capture facility at their waste-to-energy plant in Oslo in August 2022. But construction was put on hold in April 2023. And a new final investment decision is scheduled in the summer of 2024. Northern Lights is currently developing a solution for the transport and storage of CO2.
Longship is progressing
Construction of the Northern Lights CO2 transport and storage infrastructure and Heidelberg Materials’ capture plant is progressing. Brevik CCS is 71% completed and the Northern Lights storage facility is 91% completed.
Hafslund Oslo Celsio (Celsio) decided in April 2023 to introduce a twelve-month cost reduction phase. Therfore placed the construction on hold at the waste-to-energy facility at Klemetsrud. An updated cost estimate showed that the carbon capture project would exceed the maximum budget stipulated in its government funding agreement. A FEED contract with Aker Carbon Capture and Aker Solutions to develop carbon capture is now signed. Celsio has scheduled a new final investment decision in the summer of 2024.
Operational in 2025
Longship will be operational in 2025 with captured CO2 from Brevik, transport and storage, behind the initial plan (late 2024), according to the latest communication from the Government.
Northern Lights has finalized the transport and storage agreement with Yara to store up to 800,000 tonnes of CO2 annually from Yara’s ammonia and fertiliser plant in Sluskil, Netherlands. Northern Lights has also entered into transport and storage agreement with Ørsted to store 430,000 tonnes biogenic CO2 per year from two power plants in Denmark from 2026. These projects utilize the overcapacity in the Northern Lights infrastructure already established through the Longship project.
Northern Lights was selected by the EU Commission in December 2023 to receive € 131 million from Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for construction works for a Phase 2. Northern Lights are currently in dialogue with the Commission related to the conditions for this potential grant.