OSLO, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Norway's Equinor and its
partners in the Northern Lights underground carbon dioxide (CO2)
storage project offshore Norway have signed preliminary
agreements with seven potential industrial customers for the
venture.
The agreements are a crucial step towards securing
investment form the Norwegian government for the project, which
is led by Equinor in partnership with Shell and
France's Total.
Those who signed the memorandums of understanding (MoUs) on
Thursday include the world's leading metal producer
ArcelorMittal, one of the largest cement producers
Heidelberg Cement, Sweden's largest, privately-owned
refiner Preem and Finland's energy firm Fortum.
"Nothern Lights... could become the world's first
cross-border CO2 storage," Equinor's Chief Executive Eldar
Saetre told a news conference.
The Norwegian government said the industry's commitment
would be crucial for it to decide on whether to invest in the
project, which aims at capturing and storing up to 5 million
tonnes of CO2 from various industrial sites onshore.
"The signing of the MoUs are the right step in that
direction," Norway's Oil and Energy Minister Kjell-Boerge
Freiberg said. "You've shown that a larger CCS network in Europe
is possible."
Northern Lights is a part of what Norway says is a full-
scale carbon capture and storage project, which involves
storage, transportation and onshore capture facilities.
Preliminary estimates from 2016 showed it could cost between
7.2 billion Norwegian crowns ($801.7 million) to 12.6 billion
crowns to establish a full CCS chain, including CO2
transportation by ships from two onshore sites in Norway, and
the subsea storage.
So far, Norway has spent 825 million Norwegian crowns to
develop the full-scale CCS project, which also involves building
carbon capture facilities at onshore industrial sites in Norway.
If approved, the Northern Lights storage is expected to
start operations in 2023 or 2024, Gassnova, a governmental
agency in charge of CCS development, said.
($1 = 8.9810 Norwegian crowns)
(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; editing by Emelia
Sithole-Matarise)
