Questions and answers about the Longship project

The Longship project was launched on 21 September 2020, and is described in the white paper Meld. St. 33 (2019–2020) 'Longship - Carbon capture and storage' in the budget for the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy for 2021.

Longship is a full-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) project that will demonstrate the capture of CO₂ from industrial sources, as well as transport and safe storage of CO₂. CO₂ will be captured at Norcem's cement factory and Hafslund Oslo Celsio’s waste incineration plant, then it will be liquefied and collected by ships. It will then be transported to an intermediate storage facility in Øygarden northwest of Bergen, before it is pumped through pipes to the Norwegian continetal shelf, where it will be stored safely 2600 meters below the seabed. Initially, there is a storage capacity of 1.5 million tonnes of CO₂ per year at the storage site, while the pipe from the onshore facility to the reservoir is dimensioned for 5 million tonnes. Northern Lights, which is responsible for the transport and storage part of Longship, plans to increase storage capacity to 5 million tonnes per year through an additional development phase (Phase 2) and an increasing customer base.

Longship will demonstrate the capture, transport and storage of CO₂. Norcem will capture CO₂ at its cement plant in Breivik in Porsgrunn and Hafslund Oslo Celsio will capture CO₂ at its waste incineration plant at Klemetsrud in Oslo. The government provides financial support to both carbon capture projects. Northern Lights JV DA, a collaboration between the commercial partners Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies, will, with financial support from the government, facilitate the CO₂ transport and storage in the Longship project. The industrial actors will own, build and operate their facilities. The Norwegian state contributes with financing, facilitation and risk mitigation.

In order for Norway to achieve the goals we have committed to in the Paris Agreement, we must, among other things, capture and store CO₂ on a large scale. In several industrial processes, such as cement production, carbon capture and storage is necessary to significantly reduce emissions. Longship therefore contributes to creating climate solutions for the future. The Longship project will help strengthen Norwegian industry by enabling businesses to meet the climate requirements of the future. Thus, the project is an important contribution to green growth and will secure and create new jobs in the industry.  In addition, Longship facilitates the production of blue hydrogen from natural gas with carbon capture and storage. Hydrogen is highlighted in the European Green Deal and production of blue hydrogen has great potential for value creation in Norway and for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in Europe.

The total cost estimate for Longship is approximately NOK 27 billion and the government's share of the costs is estimated at NOK 18 billion. Norwegian authorities and Norwegian industry have never before invested a larger sum in a single climate project.

Regjeringen fortsetter den sterke satsingen på CCS og utviklingen av Langskip er godt i gang. Det er varslet om at prosjektet vil bli noe forsinket, men det er god dialog mellom de involverte partene. Både Northern Lights og Heidelberg Materialskan begge vise til god prosjektprogresjon.

I april 2023 varslet Hafslund Oslo Celsio at deres oppdaterte kostnadsestimat kom til å overskride maksimalbudsjettet i avtalen dersom prosjektet hadde blitt videreført med dagens prosjektgrunnlag. Kostnadsøkningen og forsinkelsen skyldes blant annet utfordringer med energi- og materialkostnader, valutaeffekter og vesentlige endringer i prosjektet. Celsio har satt prosjektgjennomføringen på vent for å redusere kostnadene og vurderer nå ulike kostnadsreduserende alternativer. For mer informasjon om status på Langskip, se Gassnova sine nettsider.

Norway and the EU have ambitious climate goals. By 2050, there should be almost no greenhouse gas emissions and those that remain should be matched by sequestration in places like forests. For some industries, especially cement production and waste incineration, capture and storage of CO₂ is the only way to remove all greenhouse gas emissions. The fifth major report of the UN Climate Panel points out that the global costs of keeping the increase in global average temperature below 2 degrees can be more than twice as high without CCS. In other reports, the UN Climate Panel and the IEA have shown that it is very difficult to achieve the global temperature targets in the Paris Agreement without CO₂ management. The alternative involves a major restructuring of industry, energy system and consumption patterns. Thus, CCS can play an important role in Norway's, Europe's and the world's efforts at cutting emissions in industries that have no other alternatives.

Longship has already had a positive effect on the development of CCS, and European industry is active in the development of the technology. Shortly after the launch of Longship, Equinor signed a letter of intent with Microsoft regarding, among other things, the storage of CO₂ in the Norwegian storage. Northern Lights JV DA, which is the transport and storage operator in Longship, a collaboration between Equinor, Shell and Total, has as of June 2021 signed letters of intent with 11 companies. In addition, Northern Lights is in dialogue with more than 60 European companies that are looking at the possibilities of using the CO₂ storage in Norway. These companies represent the potential for capturing 50 million tonnes of CO₂ per year. HeidelbergCement, which owns Norcem, has decided to start planning a full-scale capture project at its factory on Gotland in Sweden, where the capture potential is 1.8 million tonnes of CO₂ per year. This is more than four times Norcem's planned capture rate. HeidelbergCement has said that they want to build on and benefit from the experiences from Norcem and the Longship project when developing their CO₂ capture project on Gotland.

For Longship to be a climate success for the future, other countries must make use of the technology and learn from the project. Norway is in dialogue with several countries about the learning opportunities related to capture technology and is holding discussions about bilateral conditions for CO₂ storage in Norway. Several countries have shown great interest in learning more about the Longship project and Norway's work with full-scale CCS.

The industry actors are also in dialogue with several European countries about the development of CCS. Northern Lights has signed letter of intent with 11 companies for the use of the Norwegian CO₂ storage. See also question 11 regarding safe storage.

The development and operation of the CO₂ management projects at Sleipner and Snøhvit have for several decades demonstrated safe storage of CO₂ in geological formations under the seabed on the Norwegian continental shelf. Safe storage is supported by monitoring programmes and reservoir simulations that new projects can benefit from.

The Storage Directive (European Parliament and Council Directive 2009/31 / EC on the geological storage of CO₂) is the legal framework for environmentally safe storage of CO₂ within the EEA. The directive aims to ensure that there is no significant risk of CO₂ leakage or damage to health or the environment, as well as to prevent negative effects on the safety of the transport network or CO₂ storage.

Enhanced oil recovery (EOR), or advanced recovery methods, is not a part of the Longship project. Longship encompasses the safe and permanent storage of CO₂ under the seabed on the Norwegian shelf and not injection of CO₂ for enhanced oil recovery. For information on increased recovery and EOR on the Norwegian shelf, please click here.