From the Ocean Deep to the Mountain Top – Celebrating Milestones in Offshore CO2 Storage.

Last week, IEAGHG and the Gulf Coast Carbon Center held the 8^th International Workshop on Offshore Geologic CO₂ Storage in the beautiful historic Hanseatic city of Bergen, hosted by Equinor. Serendipitously, at the same time as the One Ocean Week.

Generous sponsorship from Equinor and Gassnova enabled broad participation from industry, academia, government, NGO, legal and regulatory bodies. Around 100 in-person delegates from 17 countries were joined by around 250 online from across the globe to learn about the latest developments, thinking, status and aspirations in permanent CO₂ storage using offshore reservoirs.

The offshore workshop included a full two days of talks, discussions and panels. In addition, a range of interactive stations showcasing the latest research and included a core exhibit from the reservoir and seal at the Northern Lights site to be enjoyed over refreshments and rich conversations. This 8^th Offshore Workshop coincided with exactly 10 years since the first workshop in Austin, Texas, which we celebrated in traditional Norwegian style with cake on the second day.

On the first day, delegates heard from 44 projects from the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. The ever-popular quick round of projects provided a bird ’s-eye view of developments and status. Followed by a deep dive into more granular topics. Starting at basin scale with regional screening efforts from the US, ways to manage pressure space in collegiate ways, and novel ways of thinking about containment in saline aquifers. The focus then turned to prospect level with key issues such as screening sites effectively and cost efficiently, several talks on legacy well management and lessons learned from methane seeps, the practical challenges of brine management and the NEP aquifer models that were developed as an outcome of deciding not to produce brine during operations.

Day two kicked off with lessons learned from early injection into offshore reservoirs, from the North to South, we heard from the Northern Lights (Norway), Greensands (Denmark), Poseidon (UK), and Ravenna (Italy) – hinting that intermittent/cyclic injection is showing early promise and providing quiet confidence. Monitoring techniques were covered through high-calibre talks and showcased efforts to push the boundaries of monitoring into effective strategies that provide confidence within a sensible budget, whilst not neglecting tried-and-tested techniques that deliver. The monitoring theme continued with a strong panel discussion where we heard about the progress of bringing monitoring plans from baseline to full injection from Porthos, Northern Endurance, Northern Lights and Greensands. Two talks from the Norwegian and UK regulators followed to give context to monitoring requirements.  The final session covered commercial, regulatory and social aspects of offshore CO2 storage. Tim Dixon provided an update on the new IPCC work on a reporting methodology for CDR and CCUS. Ingvild Ombudstvedt (IOM Law) provided an overview of commercial aspects of the London Protocol, based on her experience and their work on a recent IEAGHG study. We heard from the ANGEA cross-border study in APAC and recent developments in Brazil. Katherine Romanak then completed this all-female, fully international line-up with a compelling case study of working with school students on CO₂ monitoring tools (as part of a State and National competition) to test levels in a lake that was earmarked for a CO₂ storage project and was raising concerns for residents.

From the depths of the oceans to the heights of the mountains, Equinor and Gassnova provided a memorable evening at the workshop dinner. A cable car journey up to Ulriken, a restaurant at the top of the mountain with a full panoramic view overlooking Bergen, the North Sea and the snow-topped mountains. As the sun made its way to setting, attendees were treated to a delicious dinner. Our MC for the evening, Jonas Solbakken, introduced the dinner speeches (from Katherine Romanak, Tim Dixon and Philip Ringrose), and a nice surprise was the University of Bergen male voice choir, who serenaded the group. They even had a song about CCS, lyrics written by our host Sveinung Hagen! Descending the mountain afterwards by cable car with a crescent moon and the glow of the lights below was truly special.

Following the offshore workshop, 50 delegates were treated to a visit to the Northern Lights facility, where we enjoyed informed presentations from Geir Grottveit (Manager of Operations and Maintenance), Knut Mathias Vestbo (Project Director Northern Lights Phase 2), an inspiring talk from the Mayor of the Øygarden Municipality, and lastly a visit from Tim Heijn (MD of Northern Lights JV). Tim Dixon was able to present a glass globe gift on behalf of IEAGHG to Tim Heijn with the inscription “From IEAGHG to the Northern Lights Project, marking your achievement as a global milestone for CCS. Presented on the occasion of the 8th Offshore Workshop, 22 April 2026”. Some 15,000 visitors have so far visited the Northern Lights visitor centre, and seeing really is believing.

A huge thank you to the host team headed up by Sveinung Hagen (Equinor) with help from Roya Dehghan Niri, Anna Kvashchuk and Jonas Solbakken, and to our esteemed Steering Committee for putting together a jam-packed three-day program.

As always, IEAGHG will capture the key takeaways in a meeting report, ensuring the discussions feed into the wider CCS community. Presentations will be available in due course from the workshop website Global Offshore Initiative | Gulf Coast Carbon Center