Equinor Awards Key Northern Lights Contracts
Equinor has awarded more key contracts for its Northern Lights carbon capture and storage project off the coast of Norway, the Norwegian state company announced on January 28.
London-based Subsea 7 has landed a engineering, procurement, construction and installation contract for subsea pipelines and other installations, valued at kroner 500mn ($57mn), while Norway's Aibel has scored a similar deal for the Northern Lights subsea control system at the Oseberg A platform, worth kroner 140mn.
Northern Lights will initially store 1.5mn metric tons/year of CO2 emitted from industries in Norway and other European countries, rising to 5mn mt/yr at a later stage. CO2 will be transported in liquid form via ships to an onshore terminal in Oygarden and then delivered via pipeline for injection under the seabed.
Subsea 7 will fabricate and lay the 100-km pipeline carrying the CO2 to a North Sea injection well. It will also install a 36-km umbilical connecting the injection well to the Oseberg field, where subsea injection facilities will be operated. The main offshore work will take place in 2022 and 2023.
Aibel's work will cover all upgrades at Oseberg A needed to pull in and operate the umbilical system linking the platform with the Northern Lights subsea facilities. It will be carried out between January 2021 and late 2023.
Equinor last month dished out two other contracts worth kroner 1.3bn to Norwegian firms Kvaerner and its parent Aker Solutions for onshore plant facilities and a subsea injection system respectively.
Norway 's parliament is expected to formally approve Northern Lights' plan of development in the near future and then take a final investment decision on the scheme. Equinor's partners in the venture are Shell and France's Total.