OSLO, March 23 (Reuters) - Oilfield services firm Baker
Hughes is teaming up with Norway's Horisont Energi
<HRGI-ME.OL> to explore the possibility of storing more than 100
million tonnes of carbon under the Barents Sea in the Arctic,
the companies said on Tuesday.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has been cited by
governments, energy companies and industry for decades as
central to plans to reduce emissions and move to a lower-carbon
environment, but development has been slow and there are few
commercial projects undertaken around the world.
Baker Hughes and Horisont Energi will cooperate to develop
carbon abatement technologies - which allow fossil fuels to be
used with substantially reduced CO2 emissions - and to lower the
cost and delivery time of carbon capture, transport and storage
(CCTS), they said, after signing a memorandum of understanding.
Cooperation will centre on the Polaris carbon storage
project off the coast of northern Norway, which aims to store
more than 100 million tonnes of CO2, or twice the Nordic
country's annual greenhouse gas emissions. It is still at a
concept phase, but the partners aim to start construction in the
second half of 2022.
Polaris aims to have the lowest carbon storage cost
globally, paving the way for profitable CCTS facilities that are
not reliant on government support schemes, the companies said.
It also forms part of Horisont Energi's Barents Blue project
for producing carbon-neutral ammonia, a gas widely used in
industrial processes, in northern Norway.
Polaris is not the only large-scale carbon storage project
in Norway. A consortium of oil and gas firms Equinor,
Shell and Total are developing carbon
transport and storage under the Northern Lights project off
Norway's west coast.
(Reporting by Nora Buli; Editing by Susan Fenton)
