Norway’s Northern Lights project has successfully injected its first volumes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) nearly 2,600 meters under the North Sea seabed, marking the launch of the world’s first open-access CO₂ transport and storage facility. The initial shipment came from Heidelberg Materials’ cement plant in Brevik and was transported by ship to the Øygarden terminal near Bergen. From there, the CO₂ was piped through a 100-kilometer pipeline into deep geological storage, ensuring long-term sequestration of the greenhouse gas.
The Northern Lights initiative is a central part of Norway’s Longship program, which targets CO₂ reductions in hard-to-decarbonize industries such as cement and steel. The facility’s first phase can store 1.5 million metric tons of CO₂ per year, with plans to expand capacity to 5 million metric tons annually by 2028. The project is already fully subscribed, demonstrating strong industrial demand for carbon capture and storage (CCS) as a practical climate mitigation solution. More