Drilling operations have been completed at the Northern Lights project in the Norwegian part of the North Sea for a CO2 injection well and a contingent injection well within CO2 storage license EL001.
Northern Lights partners said Thursday that preliminary results confirmed the storage capacity of at least 5 million tonnes CO2 per annum.
The wells are located in the North Sea approximately 70 kilometers west of Bergen, Norway, within the EL001 license that was awarded to Northern Lights in January 2019.
In 2020, Northern Lights drilled the first CO2 exploration well that confirmed that the reservoir in the Johansen formation, at 2.600 meters depth, is suitable for safe and permanent CO2 storage.
"Northern Lights can now announce the successful conclusion of the drilling operations that commenced in August 2022 with a CO2 injection well as a sidetrack to the initial exploration well. In addition, a new contingent CO2 injection well has been drilled," the company said.
Børre Jacobsen, Managing Director at Northern Lights said: "We are pleased to announce that the preliminary results from the drilling operations have confirmed a reservoir storage capacity sufficient for phase 1 and 2 of Northern Lights’ project, with at least 5 million tonnes CO2 per annum. To utilize this capacity, we will need to drill additional injection wells. The completion of these first drilling operations is an important step in the right direction”
The wells have been drilled using Transocean's semi-submersible drilling rig Transocean Enabler. Operations were managed by Equinor on behalf of Northern Lights JV as operator.
Northern Lights is a joint venture created by Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies. The project is designed to mitigate emissions and remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by creating the first cross-border, open-source carbon dioxide transport and storage infrastructure network in Europe.