Norwegian state-owned clean energy developer Gassnova has assigned Statoil the task of evaluating development of a carbon storage site offshore Norway, which Statoil says will be the first in the world to receive carbon dioxide (CO₂) from multiple industrial sources.

It is part of Norway's plan to develop full-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) that will capture CO₂ from three onshore industrial facilities in eastern Norway, transport it by ship from the capture area to a receiving plant on Norway's west coast, pumped it from ships to onshore tanks, and from those pipe it subsea to several injection wells east of the Troll gasfield. Several possible locations are under consideration for the receiving plant.

Statoil said the storage solution it will evaluate will have the potential to receive CO₂ from both Norwegian and European emission sources.

Irene Rummelhoff, Statoil’s executive vice president for New Energy Solutions, said storing CO₂ 1000-2000 metres below the seabed was under consideration. The firm has operated CCS facilities for some 20 years at its Sleipner and Snohvit fields that store CO₂ produced from gas wellstreams.

An investment decision for project implementation is expected to be made by the Norwegian Parliament in 2019, she said, and the Norwegian CCS project will be a collaboration project between onshore industry, government authorities, and companies with offshore expertise such as Statoil.  

Mark Smedley