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 Heidelberg Materials’ (previously Norcem)'s cement factory and Hafslund Oslo Celsio’s (previously Fortum Varme) 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. Heidelberg Materialswill capture CO₂ at its cement plant in Brevik in Porsgrunn and 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, CCS 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.

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 cut emissions. The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCCC) and the IEA maintain that CCS is necessary to limit global temperature below 1.5 degrees Celsius. The alternative involves a major restructuring of the industry, the energy system and consumption patterns. Thus, CCS will play a crucial role in national and international efforts to cut emissions in industries that have no other alternatives.

The total cost estimate for Longship is approximately NOK 30 billion and the government's share of the costs is estimated at NOK 20 billion. Norwegian authorities and Norwegian industry have never before invested a larger sum in a single climate project.

The development of Longship is progressing well. Longship will be operational from early 2025. Both Northern Lights and Heidelberg Materials are on track to initiate operations from 2025.

In April 2023, Celsio notified that their updated cost estimates would exceed the maximum budget. The increase in costs was related to high energy prices and cost of material as well as currency exchange effects. The company has put project implementation on hold to assess cost reducing measures, and a new project basis will be presented to the government in the summer of 2024.

Longship has already had a positive effect on the development of CCS, and European industry is active in the development of the technology. As a full-scale demonstration project, Longship provides learning, experience and cost reductions which will facilitate for the establishment of new projects. Northern Lights JV DA, which is the transport and storage operator in Longship, has signed letters of intent with several companies. In addition, Northern Lights is in dialogue with a large number of European companies that are looking at the possibilities of storing their CO₂ in Norway. These companies represent the potential for capturing around 70 million tonnes of CO₂ per year. Since the launch of Longship, Heidelberg Materials has l introduced the world’s first carbon captured net-zero cement which is now being launched to the market.

For Longship to be a climate success for the future, other countries must make use of the technology and learn from the project. The state enterprise for CCS in Norway, Gassnova, manages the state ownership of Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM). Learning reports and analyses are shared with the public on a continuous basis.

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. In 2024, Norway signed bilateral MoUs (Memorandum of Understanding) with Denmark, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands to allow for cross-border transport of CO₂.

CO₂ management is completely safe. CO₂ is captured from the air and converted into a liquid before being transported by ship to the storage location. When CO₂ is in liquid form, it cannot explode. From the storage location, the CO₂ is transported through pipelines to geological formations beneath the seabed. There is no risk of leakage after storage has taken place. 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.