Norway Opens Leading Carbon Capture Facility

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland) -- Norway has officially opened the world's largest carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility.

Located in Mongstad, northwest of the city of Bergen, the Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM), will run two CCS projects using different post-combustion carbon-capture techniques, one based on amine and the other on chilled ammonia solvent. The projects will capture and scrub 80,000 tonnes of the gas from the Mongstad oil refinery and another 20,000 tonnes of emissions from the 280-megawatt (MW) combined heat and power (CHP) plant located on the site.

Launched this week by the country's Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg, the troubled project has cost around €770 million ($1 billion) to date and is running more than two years late.

"Today we are opening the world's largest and most advanced laboratory for testing carbon capture technologies," Stoltenberg said. "We need to find a way to reconcile the need for energy and the need for emission reductions. Carbon capture technology is a key. Although massive investments in renewables will be made in the years ahead, the world will continue to depend on fossil fuels for many years to come. If we are to ensure a sustainable energy supply, our only option is to reduce emissions from coal, gas and oil. This is why the development of carbon capture technology is so vital. This technology may deliver up to twenty per cent of the emission reductions needed by 2050."

The TCM project is owned jointly by state-owned energy company Gassnova SF (Porsgrunn, Norway) (75.1%), Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil ASA (NYSE:STO) (Stavanger, Norway) (20%), Royal Dutch Shell plc (NYSE:RDS.A) (The Hague, Netherlands) (2.44%) and Sasol (NYSE:SSL) (Johannesburg, South Africa) (2.44%).

Last November, the partners awarded the technology contracts. For additional information see November 15, 2011, article - Norway's Mongstad Carbon Capture Project Advances.

TCM is using the chilled ammonia post-combustion technology from France's Alstom SA (EPA:ALO) (Levallois-Perret, France) and the amine scrubbing technology from Aker Clean Carbon AS (Fornebu, Norway).

European Union Energy Commissioner, Guenther Oettinger, commented: "Europe has to remain at the forefront of developing this technology: not only to reduce CO2 emissions but also to allow European companies to remain world leaders in developing a technology that -- as the IEA has stated -- will need to be installed on more than 3,000 sites around the world by 2050. The Technology Centre Mongstad is another important milestone in Europe's undertaking to develop CCS technologies".

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