The Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD) is tasked with identifying locations for safe storage of CO2 in the subsurface. CCS is and will continue to be a permanent method for removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

The Director General communicated the following message in the debate:

Knowledge and policy instruments

Over the course of 50 years of oil and gas activity on the Norwegian shelf, we have mapped, acquired and interpreted geological data. This has yielded exceptional insight into the subsurface. We have access to all this data when we make our assessments of storage locations.

The information from the oil industry gives us a good overview of the reservoirs, cap rocks (50 – 300 metres) and faults. We require at least 2 cap rocks, which allows us to be sure that CO2 will not leak out of the storage sites. Our regulations also require very good monitoring strategies.

Vast storage capacity

CO2 has been injected on the Norwegian shelf for 25 years, and this is subject to strict monitoring. On the Snøhvit field in the Barents Sea, we have continuous monitoring in the well, and on the Sleipner field in the North Sea, we have 4D seismic.

The NPD’s mapping shows that there is capacity to store as much as 80 billion tonnes of CO2 on the shelf, the equivalent of 1,000 years of Norwegian emissions!

Considerable interest

In 2018, we announced the first area for storing CO2 on the Norwegian shelf in connection with the Longship project. On 10 September this year, the Ministry announced two new storage areas; one in the Barents Sea and one in the North Sea. The application deadline is 9 December and the NPD has already noticed considerable interest here.

More about CCS

The NPD’s CCS atlas