Subsea7 awarded Northern Lights contract

Oslo-listed Subsea7 has won a contract from Equinor worth between $50m and $150m for the second phase of the Northern Lights CO2 transport and storage project offshore Norway.

Subsea7’s scope includes engineering, procurement, construction and installation of a five-kilometre CO2 pipeline, as well as installation of integrated satellite structures, umbilicals, tie-in and pre-commissioning activities.

Fabrication of the pipeline will take place at Subsea7’s spoolbase at Vigra, Norway and offshore operations will be executed in 2026 and 2027.

The Northern Lights project is a joint venture between energy giants Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergiesis. The first development phase of the project is completed and ready to receive CO2 from Norwegian and European industrial emitters. Operations are scheduled to start this summer, with the first CO2 transport and storage from Heidelberg Materials’ cement factory in Brevik, as part of the Longship project by the Norwegian government.

The three companies recently reached a $717m investment decision to expand the project’s capacity following a commercial agreement with the Swedish energy provider, Stockholm Exergi, for cross-border transport and storage of up to 900,000 tonnes of biogenic CO2 annually. The second phase of Northern Lights will increase the transport and storage capacity from 1.5m to a minimum of 5m tonnes of CO2 per year.

The new infrastructure will include additional onshore storage tanks, pumps, a new jetty and injection wells, and more CO₂ carriers. The expansion is expected to be completed and ready for operation in the second half of 2028.