Equinor has been awarded a contract for the development of two subsea CO₂ storage facilities. ‘Smeaheia’ will be based the North Sea and ‘Polaris’ in the Barents Sea. The two licenses are important building blocks for developing the Norwegian continental shelf into a leading province for CO₂ storage in Europe.

Carbon capture and storage is crucial for providing CO₂ solutions on a commercial basis to industrial customers, such as steel, cement, and other heavy industries.

“We are now building on more than 25 years of experience of carbon capture and storage on the Norwegian continental shelf and we regard the award as an important milestone,” said Irene Rummelhoff, executive vice president for Marketing – Midstream and Processing.

“We see that demand for CO₂ storage is increasing in several countries, and we want to get started with developing new CO₂ storages quickly, so that we can offer industrial solutions that can contribute to decarbonisation in Europe.”

Through these two projects, Equinor aims to contribute to CO₂ reductions equivalent to half of Norway’s annual emissions.