Baker Hughes has signed a memorandum of understanding with Norwegian startup Horisont Energi for the Polaris carbon capture, transport, and storage (CCTS) project project in the Barents Sea.
The project, currently in the concept phase, is expected to have a total carbon-storage capacity in excess of 100 million tons, which is equivalent to twice Norway’s annual greenhouse-gas emissions, according to a release from Baker Hughes.
The facility is expected to enter the construction phase in the second half of 2022. According to the Horisont website, 36 million tons of project capacity has already been reserved.
The offshore carbon-storage facility is part of Horisont Energi’s “Barents Blue” project, which it said is the first global and full-scale carbon-neutral “blue” ammonia production plant.
“The global carbon technology market is emerging for carbon storage and utilization,” said Bjørgulf Haukelidsæter Eidesen, chief executive of Horisont Energi. “With Baker Hughes, we will scale solutions across the carbon value chain to accelerate the decarbonization of the energy industry.”
Polaris aims to have the lowest carbon-storage cost globally, paving the way for profitable CCTS facilities that are not reliant on government support.
In addition to collaborating for the Polaris facility, Baker Hughes and Horisont Energi will also work together to develop processes and technologies across the carbon-capture value chain, including the reduction of carbon footprint in the well construction and subsea segments, high-efficiency turbomachinery technology, and low- emissions power and heat generation for clean ammonia plants.
Polaris is not the only large-scale carbon storage project in Norway. Equinor, Royal Dutch Shell and Total are developing carbon transport and storage via the Northern Lights project off Norway’s west coast.
Northern Lights is the transport and storage component of the Longship project, the Norwegian government’s full-scale CCS project, which includes capture of carbon dioxide from industrial point sources in the Oslo region. When Northern Lights starts operations in 2024, it will ship captured carbon dioxide to an onshore terminal on the Norwegian west coast and, from there, transport it by pipeline to an offshore subsurface storage location in the North Sea.
