Offshore staff
STAVANGER, Norway – The Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has awarded Equinor operatorships of two offshore CO2 storage developments: Smeaheia in the North Sea and Polaris in the Barents Sea.
Equinor has submitted plans to develop annual CO2 storage capacity in Smeaheia of 20 MM metric tons (22 MM tons).
Northern Lights, the company’s initial CO2 storage facility for the Longship project in the Norwegian North Sea, has a planned injection capacity of 1.5 Mm metric tons/yr in Phase 1 from 2024, with plans to raise capacity to 5-6 million tonnes (5.5-6.6 Mm tons) a year from around 2026.
These two schemes, Equinor claims, can contribute to CO2 reductions equivalent to half of Norway's annual emissions. In addition, the company plans to develop further storage licenses in the North Sea with a view to construct a common, pipeline-based Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) infrastructure.
In the Barents Sea, about 100 km (62 mi) from the coast of Finnmark, northern Norway, is the location for the Polaris CO2 storage development, part of the Barents Blue project which Equinor is leading in collaboration with Vår Energi and Horisont Energi.
The partners plan an ammonia production facility at Markoppneset in Hammerfest that will reform natural gas from the Barents Sea to clean, blue ammonia using CCS.
The development’s first stage includes capture, transport and storage of 2 MM metric tons/yr (2.2 MM tons) of CO2.
Bjørn Thore Ribesen, Vice President-Field Development and Projects at Vår Energi, said: “We are aiming to become a net zero producer, scope 1 and 2, by 2030, and the Barents Blue and Polaris could become an important step towards being carbon neutral.”
4/5/2022
