Northern Lights, the world’s first cross-border CO2 transport and storage facility project, has successfully injected and safely stored the first volumes of carbon dioxide (CO2) in a reservoir 2600 metres below the seabed in the North Sea.
The CO2 was captured from a cement factory in Brevik, Norway, and shipped to an onshore terminal in Øygarden, before being transported through a 100 km pipeline to the Aurora reservoir beneath the North Sea, off western Norway.
Operations commenced in summer 2025, with the facility able to store 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year. A second phase was approved in March 2025 to expand the capacity to at least 5 million tonnes per year by 2028.
The project supports European climate goals by providing a scalable solution for cutting industrial CO2 emissions. It is jointly owned by Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies, with Equinor managing day-to-day operations.
The success of Northern Lights demonstrates that carbon capture and storage is a practical industry to reduce greenhouse gases and help Europe fight climate change.
