Equinor has struck an agreement with Horisont Energi to further develop the Polaris carbon transportation and storage project off the coast of northern Norway.
Equinor has struck an agreement with Horisont Energi to further develop the Polaris carbon transportation and storage project off the coast of northern Norway.
The scheme is expected to have a carbon storage capacity in excess of 100 million tonnes, which is equivalent to twice Norway’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. The offshore carbon storage reservoir is a key part of the planned Barents Blue project, which will be Europe’s first world-scale carbon neutral ammonia production plant. If developed, Barents Blue will have a production capacity of 3000 tonnes of ammonia per day, making it one of the largest ammonia plants in the world. In its first phase, the facility will convert natural gas from the Barents South region to carbon neutral blue ammonia, an easily transportable hydrogen carrier, which can be converted back to hydrogen at destination or used directly in many applications. Currently at the end of the feasibility phase and soon entering the concept phase, an investment decision for Polaris and the Barents Blue project is expected towards the end of 2022.
In December 2020 Horisont Energi and Equinor started a joint feasibility study for the Barents Blue project. The plant is intended to have the capacity to produce more than 1 million tonnes of blue ammonia per year once operational in 2025, and will have a CO2 capture rate above 99%, making it the most carbon-efficient gas-fed ammonia plant in the world. In the first phase, Polaris will store 2 million tonnes of CO2 annually from the Barents Blue ammonia production.
At the Sleipner and Snøhvit fields, Equinor has captured and stored 26 million tonnes of CO2 to date. The company is also a partner in the Northern Lights CO2 transport and storage project.
