Norway’s Northern Lights Project Begins Commissioning Process for LCO2 Carrier Vessel
Norway’s Northern Lights project highlighted today that the commissioning process has begun for its first LCO2 carrier vessel after the company confirmed that it has all the necessary permits to start injecting and storing CO2. Operations are scheduled to start this summer, with the first CO2 transport and storage from Heidelberg Materials’ cement factory in Brevik, Norway.
The operation which is a joint venture between Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies reported in a social media posting that the first CO2 is aboard the Northern Pioneer, the 10,000 dwt carrier built at Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Company (DSIC) in China and delivered in November 2024. The vessel has the capacity to transport approximately 7,500 cbm of liquified CO2. The cargo transport conditions are a maximum of 19 bar (g) pressure and a minimum of negative 35 C temperature.
“We’re proud to share that commissioning has started, with liquefied CO? from our first customer Heidelberg Materials in Brevik, now beginning gassing up our vessel Northern Pioneer,” the company writes.
Engineers have begun the cooldown aboard the vessel loading the first LCO2 (Northern Lights)
Northern Lights announced at the beginning of May that the Ministry of Energy, the Ministry of Climate and Environment, the Norwegian Environmental Agency (NEA), and the Norwegian Ocean Industry Authority (Havtil) had all given their consents for the first phase of the storage effort. The permit granted is for the injection and storage of 37.5 million tonnes of CO2 from this year and the next 25 years. This covers the first phase of Northern Lights development with a capacity to transport and store 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year.
The CO2 will be captured by industrial companies and loaded aboard the vessel for transport to the storage and processing facility in Norway. It will then be pumped offshore to the storage site below the North Sea.
Northern Lights has taken delivery on its first two vessels while two more are being built in China. Before starting operations, it also reported that it had completed the investment decision for an expansion project which will increase transport and storage capacity to a minimum of 5 million tonnes CO2 per year.