Building confidence in CCS: From Sleipner to the Northern Lights Project

Abstract

Equinor’s ambition is to be a leading company in CO2-efficient oil and gas production, and to offer new business opportunities within renewable energy (Figure 1). CO2 handling consequently provides both a challenge and an opportunity. Equinor has long experience with CO2 capture, transport, and storage as operator of TCM (Test Centre Mongstad), Sleipner and Snohvit fields and also as partner in the In Salah field in Algeria. The Norwegian State is presently leading a new full-scale CCS project, aimed at capturing CO2 from industrial sources and storing it beneath the North Sea. Equinor, together with partners Shell and Total in the Northern Lights partnership, is responsible for FEED (Front-End Engineering Design) of the transport and storage part of this project. The Global CCS Institute defines a large-scale CCS facility to comprise at least 0.8 Mt CO2 annually for a coal-based power plant and at least 0.4 Mt CO2 for other emission-intensive industrial facilities. Globally, nearly 20 large-scale industry-scale CCS projects are in operation today, with development plans for more. Most of these projects are in onshore settings and focusing on enhanced oil recovery. In addition to Sleipner and Snohvit, three other projects are injecting CO2 into saline aquifers: Quest (Alberta, Canada – operated by Shell), Decatur (Illinois, USA – operated by Midwest Geological Sequestration Consortium), and Boundary Dam (Alberta, Canada – operated by SaskPower) which uses both saline aquifer storage at the Aquistore site and CO2 EOR in the Weyburn-Midale oilfield.