Norway Bags First Commercial Carbon Storage Deal with Yara

Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--The world's first commercial agreement on cross-border carbon dioxide (CO2) transportation and storage has been signed by Norway's Northern Lights project and leading fertilizer producer Yara International (Oslo, Norway).

The company has agreed to the main commercial terms to transport CO2 captured from Yara Sluiskil, an ammonia and fertilizer plant in the Netherlands, and permanently store it under the seabed off the coast of western Norway. Around 800,000 tons of CO2 per year will be captured, compressed, and liquefied in the Netherlands and then transported to the Northern Lights site in Norway from 2025.

Northern Lights is the world's largest proposed carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project, backed by Equinor (NYSE:EQNR) (Stavanger), Shell Plc (NYSE:SHEL) (London, England) and France's TotalEnergies SE (NYSE:TTE) (Courbevoie, France). Located on the Norwegian Continental Shelf, it is Norway's first full-chain CCS project and will be developed in phases, with Phase 1 providing the capacity to transport, inject and store up to 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year under the seabed. The project will cost up to 2.6 billion euro (US$2.6 billion) in total, which will cover construction and 10 years of operation. The Norwegian government will cover around 80% of the project's estimated budget, and in 2020 the project received a huge financial boost with a grant of 2.1 billion euro (US$2.1 billion) from the European Free Trade Association (EFTA).

"Action to decarbonize industry is urgent and Yara is a frontrunner," said Svein Tore Holsether, chief executive officer, Yara International ASA. "I am very pleased to announce that we are now on our way to removing CO2 emissions from our production plant in Sluiskil. This will take us a step further towards carbon-free food production and accelerate the supply of clean ammonia for fuel and power production."

Børre Jacobsen, managing director of Northern Lights, added: "Yara is our first commercial customer, filling our available capacity in Northern Lights. With this we are establishing a market for transport and storage of CO2. From early 2025 we will be shipping the first tonnes of CO2 from the Netherlands to Norway. This will demonstrate that CCS is a climate tool for Europe".

Northern Lights also has the backing of leading European steel and cement makers, with many signed up to connect planned carbon capture projects to the transportation and storage network. For additional information, see September 18, 2019, article - Heavy Industry Giants Back Norway's Biggest Carbon Capture Project.

The CO2-receiving terminal will be located at the premises of the Naturgassparken industrial area in the municipality of Øygarden in western Norway. The plant will be remotely operated from Equinor's facilities at the Sture terminal in Øygarden and the subsea facilities from Oseberg A platform in the North Sea.

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