Norwegian subsea engineering services company Subsea 7 has announced that it has been awarded offshore contracts worth between $50 million and $150 million to provide services for the second phase of the Northern Lights CO2 transportation and storage project offshore Norway.
Under the contract, Subsea7 will be responsible for the design, procurement, construction and installation of the 5km CO2 pipeline works, as well as the installation of an integrated satellite structure, umbilical cables, connections and commissioning activities. Offshore operations will take place in 2026 and 2027.
The Northern Lights project is said to be a joint venture between energy giants Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies. The first development phase of the project has been completed and will allow it to receive carbon dioxide from industrial emitters in Norway and Europe. As part of the Norwegian government’s “Longship” project, the project is scheduled to begin operations this summer, transporting and storing the first carbon dioxide from a cement plant.
Recently, Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies reached a $717 million investment decision to expand the capacity of the Northern Lights project after entering into a commercial agreement with Swedish energy supplier Stockholm Exergi for the cross-border transportation and storage of up to 900,000 tonnes of biogenic CO2 per year. The second phase of the Northern Lights project will increase the transport and storage capacity of CO2 from 1.5 million tonnes per year to at least 5 million tonnes.
The new infrastructure will include additional onshore storage tanks, jetty, a new terminal and injection wells, as well as additional CO2 transportation vessels. The expansion is expected to be completed and operational by the second half of 2028.