Being very impressed in and by Norway! Visits to the Longship project after celebrating the 20th anniversary of the CLIMIT programme.

That was a busy CCS and CDR week in Norway, well I guess that should be expected in that CCS-leading country!

The week started with the CDR Conference in Larvik and the Mission Innovation CDR Student competition (see Jasmin’s blog CLIMIT Summit CDR Conference – IEAGHG). This was followed by the CLIMIT Summit, a biannual conference of Norwegian government funded R,D&D under their CLIMIT programme. This year being a special one, celebrating their 20^th anniversary! I was invited to give a plenary talk to update on Article 6.4 and its relevance for CCS and CDR. It was a pleasure for me to also moderate a session looking at R,D&D to 2040 in the context of supporting large-scale projects. Many thanks to the speakers and panellists Aymeric Amand, Mona Mølnvik, Martijn van de Sande, William Christensen, Adullah Alkhedhair, Charlotte Powell and Kevin Dooley for their excellent contributions. IEAGHG’s Jasmin Kemper presented on what the international community wants from the Nordic countries on BECCS during an invitation-only side-event. I also managed to fit in a remote presentation for the World Bank IFC to their event in Indonesia.

The highlights of a very good week for me were the CCS project site visits arranged by Gassnova for the CLIMIT delegates.

It was a great pleasure to visit the world’s first full-scale CCS on a cement plant. SLB Capturi‘s capture technology on Heidelberg Materials‘ Brevik cement plant is constructed and getting ready to capture 400kt CO₂ pa for shipping to Northern Lights. All was retrofitted in this compact site without disrupting cement production! It was interesting to note that the capture rate will be 50%, this rate being limited by the waste heat available (46MW) from the plant to run the desorption side. Also interesting was the negative emissions aspect, as some 30% of the fuel used is biogenic from domestic waste. The cement product is called “evoZero” and will be ready for low-carbon cement markets soon. There has been such progress since my first visit ten years ago when small scale capture technology tests were underway. Thanks to Heidelberg for hosting.

The next visit was to the Northern Lights Receiving Facility, near Bergen. This is completed and ready for CO₂ deliveries. It was very exciting to see everything in place for this Phase 1 of operations (1.5Mtpa), including the first ship, Northern Pioneer, moored for commissioning the unloading facilities. The ships are also interesting not just for being the first large-scale CO₂ carriers (7,500m³), but their lower-carbon designs, with a Flettner mast working through the Magnus effect to act as a sail to power the ship, and reduced friction in water from air lubrication, and being LNG powered, means that the carbon intensity of this ship’s journeys are reduced by 34%. The twelve storage tanks onshore will hold 8,250m³ (one ship load plus 10%),  before it is sent via a seabed pipeline 100km to the Aurora storage site, where it is injected from two seabed templates in to the Johansen formation some 2,600m beneath the seabed. There are now two commercial contracts in place with CO₂ sources outside Norway (Yara’s ammonia and fertiliser plant in The Netherlands and Ørsted’s bioenergy plants in Denmark) as well as the CO₂ source parts of the Longship project (Heidelberg’s cement plant at Brevik and Celsio’s waste to energy plant near Oslo). Very importantly, there are some 30 expressions of interest from other CO₂ emitting installations across northern Europe looking to decarbonise. Whilst Phase 1 has significant Norwegian government support, the Phase 2 expansion to 5Mtpa is expected to be self-funding, with the existing pipeline built large enough to accommodate this. What an enabling project! Many thanks to Equinor staff for hosting.

This was my 3^rd visit to the Northern Lights site. The first was taking the first international group in Feb 2020 with our 4^th Offshore Workshop (see photo and weather!). It was especially rewarding to visit again, because the London Protocol export resolution (2019) enabled this “enabling” project, and IEAGHG played a key role in that crucial meeting (as we do in all annual London Protocol meetings).

It may be flippant for me to say this is CCS tourism at its best! But the serious aspects are to extract key operational learnings from these first-of-a-kind projects to share with other projects around the world. Taking visitors to these assists with this, as well as informing policy-makers and other international stakeholders. Many thanks to CLIMIT Summit 2025 for the conference and the excellent site visits, and of course to the project developers and to the Norwegian government.

[photos – Tim Dixon, IEAGHG’s GM, moderating a panel discussion at the CLIMIT Summit, at Brevik, and with Northern Pioneer and holding tanks].