Northern Lights Obtains, Stores First CO2 Shipment from Heidelberg Materials

The Northern Lights CO₂ transportation and storage project, owned by TotalEnergies, Equinor, and Shell, received its first CO₂ delivery by maritime vessel from the Heidelberg Materials cement factory in Brevik, Norway. From the facility in Øygarden, CO₂ was transported 100 km offshore Norway’s western coast and injected 2,600 meters below the seabed into storage facilities.

The project’s first phase features a storage capacity of 1.5 metric tons (MT) of CO₂ per year, with the second phase’s financial investment decision announced in March 2025, increasing capacity to over 5 MT of CO₂ per year in 2028. Phase 1 was fully booked by customers across Norway and continental Europe, which aim to reduce emissions for European industry.

“With the start of operations of Northern Lights, we are entering a new phase for the carbon capture and storage (CCS) industry in Europe,” said Arnaud Le Foll, Senior Vice President of New Business – Carbon Neutrality, TotalEnergies. “This industry now moves to reality, offering hard-to-abate sectors a credible and tangible way to reduce CO₂ emissions.”

Northern Lights facility in Norway | Image Credit: Equinor

These customers include:

• Hafslund Celsio and Heidelberg Materials in Norway
• Yara in the Netherlands
• Ørsted in Denmark
• Stockholm Exergi in Sweden

The Northern Lights facility is part of the Norwegian full-scale CCS project named “Longship”. The full-scale endeavor includes CO₂ capture from industrial sources and liquid CO₂ shipping to the Øygarden terminal. Liquefied CO₂ is then transported via pipeline to an offshore storage location below the North Sea for safe and permanent storage.

MTU & Equinor Extend MRO

In April 2024, MTU Power signed a five-year contract extension with Equinor ASA for maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) work on its LM-series industrial gas turbines. MTU Power will service Equinor’s fleet of GE Vernova Gas Power LM2500 and LM6000 industrial gas turbines until 2028. The MRO contract was initially signed in 2015 and, in addition to turbine servicing, it also entails offshore field service support, piece part repairs, and in-country level 2 maintenance, including module swaps and smaller work scopes.

MTU Maintenance Berlin-Brandenburg GmbH is the contract partner and will perform the MRO work at its facility in Ludwigsfelde, south of Berlin. MTU Power will also offer technical support to expand Equinor’s footprint in Brazil, where it has been operating a level 2 industrial gas turbine service center since 2012.

Equinor’s Hydrogen Plant

In February 2024, Equinor was granted planning permission by the East Riding of Yorkshire Council for its 600 MW low-carbon hydrogen production plant equipped with carbon capture, which will help to establish the Humber estuary as an international hub for low-carbon hydrogen and reduce carbon emissions. The permission was granted as the project prepares for a potential application into the U.K.’s Cluster Sequencing Track-1 Expansion process.

This government program is expected to launch this year and will select decarbonization projects in both the Humber and Teesside regions that can connect to the East Coast Cluster’s carbon-capture transport and storage infrastructure by around 2030. H2H Saltend will be located at the Saltend Chemicals Park and will help to reduce the park’s emissions by up to 33%.