Four companies offered acreage for CO2 storage
Recently, the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy published offers for two new exploration licences related to CO2 storage under the storage regulations on the Norwegian continental shelf in the North Sea.
“The establishment of commercial capture and storage of CO2 is important for the world to reach the goals of the Paris Agreement. “The award of these two new licences contributes Norway to play an important role when it comes to establishing commercial, large-scale CO2 storage for European emission sources”, says Minister of Petroleum and Energy, Terje Aasland.
The two exploration licences that have been offered are located in the southern part of the North Sea. The eastern licence is offered to a group consisting of Aker BP and OMV (Norge). The north-west licence is offered to a group consisting of Wintershall Dea Norge and Altera Infrastructure Group through its subsidiary Stella Maris CCS. “The award is made to two applicationgroups that have matured good plans for the storage of CO2. These projects will be able to help build up a new, commercial Norwegian marine industry”, Mr Aasland adds.
The licences are offered with a binding work program with installed mileposts that ensure fast and efficient progress, or the return of the areas if the licences do not carry out the storage project. This is the fourth time acreage is being awarded for CO2 storage pursuant to the CO2 Storage Regulations. These are the fifth and sixth acreages awarded for CO2 storage on the Norwegian continental shelf.