The first carbon dioxide volumes from cement manufacturer Heidelberg Materials have been successfully transported and stored at Norway’s Northern Lights project.

Believed to be the world’s first third-party CO2 transportation and storage facility, the Northern Lights project is a joint venture equally owned by energy specialists Equinor, Shell, and TotalEnergies.

Its first storage operation saw CO2 captured at Heidelberg Materials’ cement factory in Brevik. The CO2 was then transported through a 100km pipeline before being injected into the Aurora reservoir under the seabed of the North Sea.

Anders Opedal, CEO of Equinor, described the news as a major milestone.

The company’s Executive Vice-President Irene Rummelhoff, added, “We look forward to leading safe and efficient operations on behalf of the Northern Lights partnership and use this as a stepping stone for the further development of CCS in Europe.”

Phase one of the Northern Lights project has the capacity to store 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 a year. The volume has already been fully secured by customers across Europe.

The first phase of the Northern Lights carbon capture project was fully completed in mid‑2024. In February, the Northern Pioneer – the world’s first commercial liquefied CO2 transport ship – arrived in Norway to serve the Northern Lights project.

The 130m-long ship, which can transport 8,000 tonnes of liquefied CO2, should begin operations this year.

A final investment decision of the second phase was announced in March and will increased the project’s capacity by a minimum of five million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year, once it is operational in 2028.

Northern Lights has already signed a commercial agreement with Stockholm Exergi to handle up to 900,000 tonnes of CO2 annually from its bioenergy facility in Sweden for the second phase.