Smeaheia — bringing large scale CO2 storage to European industry
Smeaheia is a CO2 storage reservoir in North Sea that can be a game-changer for CO2 transport and storage in Northwestern Europe.
The field is planned developed with two CO2 transport and storage solutions; a 1000 km long pipeline called CO2 Highway Europe and a CO2 ship transport solution connecting European customers with the CO2 storage site Smeaheia in the North Sea.
Equinor ambition for annual capacity for CO2 transport and storage by 2035
2 transport concepts
being evaluated, including ships and pipelines
~20 MMTPA
(million metric tonnes per annum) injection capacity, ambition
Watch this short film about Equinor’s ambitions for a new 1000 km long pipeline - CO2 Highway Europe – connecting European industrial emitters with massive storage reservoirs like Smeaheia in the North Sea.
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Essential for Europe to meet its climate goals
Our ambition with Smeaheia is to develop transport and storage solutions for up to 20 million tonnes of CO2 per year, which would entail a major increase in commercial CCS capacity on a global scale.
Developing CO2 transport and storage at speed and scale is essential for Europe to reach its climate goals.
Smeaheia is a CO2 storage project intended to develop the Smeaheia license for CO2 storage, linking a large-scale CO2 pipeline transport solution from Northwestern Europe and CO2 ship transport to the large Smeaheia storage site in the North Sea.
What is CCS and why do we need it?
Carbon, Capture and Storage is the common acronym for the process of capturing CO2 from an emitter followed by the transportation and storage of the CO2 safely in a reservoir. Smeaheia will together with the CO2 transportation projects provide a safe solution for the transportation and storage of CO2 for European emitters. The emitters will themselves execute the CO2 capture process locally at their own sites.
The Smeaheia license is operated by Equinor with a 100 percent ownership share. The license covers a large area east of the Troll field close to the west coast of Norway. The reservoirs along the coast of Norway are well suited for storing CO2, and we can potentially store the equivalent of 1000 years of Norwegian emissions on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. Equinor’s ambition is to develop value chains for CO2 transport and storage with an annual capacity of 30—50 million tonnes of CO2 (Equinor share) by 2035. The CO2 pipeline will connect to wells at Smeaheia and other potential CO2 stores – like Kinno and Abondigas - as they are matured – and is scheduled to come onstream by 2030.
~ 30 years
Equinor experience in CCS operations
1000 years
The NCS has the potential to store the equivalent of 1000 years of Norwegian CO2 emissions
100% operated
by Equinor
A leading province for CO2 storage in Europe
The Smeaheia CO2 reservoir is an important building block for developing the Norwegian continental shelf into a leading province for CO2 storage in Europe.
The reservoirs can store CO2 from emitters in Europe and Norway, and are expected to be ready for injection in 2030.
The transport concepts being considered are a large-scale CO2 pipeline from Northwestern Europe to Smeaheia, and a CO2 ship transport solution.
Storage and pipeline solutions being considered
Two main transport concepts, including CO2 ship transport and pipelines, are being matured in parallel, both connected to the Smeaheia CO2 storage reservoir.
These are the two concepts:
1) Smeaheia Norwegian Hub: a CO2 ship transport solution with an onshore receiving terminal on the West Coast of Norway with a CO2 pipeline connected to wells at Smeaheia.
2) CO2 Highway Europe: a CO2 pipeline from North-West Europe connected to wells at Smeaheia and additional storage opportunities as they are matured.
The European CO2 pipeline can reduce cost of transport as well as providing higher operational consistency and reduced lifecycle emissions.
Equinor ambition is to develop 30—50 million tonnes per annum capacity for CO2 transport and storage by 2035.
Photo: Einar Aslaksen
Decades of CCS experience
Equinor has been developing groundbreaking CCS solutions since 1996, including Sleipner, Snøhvit, Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM) and Northern Lights.
With the use of CCS, emissions can be significantly reduced from gas-fired power plants, and hard to abate industries like cement, steel, petrochemicals etc.
Safe capture and storage of CO2 is also a prerequisite and enabler for developing blue hydrogen and ammonia from natural gas. With CCS, blue hydrogen and ammonia can more or less eliminate emissions from the use of natural gas, thus ensuring access to large amounts of low-carbon and reliable energy.
We are the pioneers of industrial CCS with almost 30 years of operational experience across several projects in the North Sea region. Building on what we learned from our Sleipner, Snøhvit and Northern Lights projects, Equinor is developing more international collaborative projects like CO2 Highway Europe and the Northern Endurance Partnership off the coast of the United Kingdom.
Deepsea Stavanger started drilling two appraisal wells at Smeaheia towards the end of 2024.
Photo: Rune Samuelsen
The Smeaheia reservoir will be well surveyed
Smeaheia can potentially contain multiple reservoir levels that can be utilized for CO2 injection and storage.
The reservoirs currently being targeted for CO2 injection are in the Jurassic Viking and Dunlin Groups. We intend to acquire more data from these reservoirs through the drilling of two appraisal wells in 2024/2025.
One of the first things we did immediately after being awarded the Smeaheia licence was to acquire a new 3D seismic dataset. The data provide important input for further subsurface studies and modelling.
New storage licenses
Equinor has ambitions to develop further storage licences in the North Sea in the coming years with the aim of building a common, pipeline-based infrastructure that can contribute to substantial cost reductions for the CCS value chains.
In June 2024, Equinor was awarded the operatorships for the development of two new CO2 storages in the North Sea. The new licences are important building blocks for developing the Norwegian Continental Shelf into a leading area for CO2 storage in Europe.
Equinor was awarded operatorships and a 100 per cent share for the two licences referred to as Albondigas and Kinno. The new licences are each expected to have the capacity to store around 5 million tonnes of CO2 per year when in operation. This estimate will be further determined in the exploration phase.
Equinor experience increasing demand for CO2 storage from several countries, and intends to bring forward new CO2 storages quickly, so that we can offer industrial solutions that can support large scale decarbonisation of hard-to-abate industries in Europe.
Equinor recently completed the first phase of the Northern Lights CO2 transport and storage facility together with Shell and Total Energies. The facility is now ready to receive CO2.
UK: The Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP) and Net Zero Teesside Power (NZT Power)
Equinor is a partner in the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP), a CO2 transportation and storage solution for the East Coast Cluster (ECC), one of the UK Government’s first selected CCS clusters.
NEP IJV partners bp, Equinor and Total Energies hold licenses for subsea CO2 storage in the UK North Sea. Equinor is also a partner in the planned Net Zero Teesside Power (NZT Power), which is part of the East Coast Cluster. NZT Power will be a new gas power plant with CO2 capture, which supports the decarbonisation ambitions across the Northeast of England’s industrial regions. bp provides operator services for both projects.
Equinor has been awarded its first CCS exploration permit in Denmark as operator, together with partners Ørsted and Nordsøfonden. The partnership will make surveys to assess if the onshore license in the Northwest Zealand can be developed into a safe CO2 storage facility.
Equinor participates in a transport and storage project development along the US Gulf Coast together with operator Chevron and partner TotalEnergies. It is located in a region with over 100 million tons of annual CO2 emissions from industry.
