Norway may store CO2 under North Sea from 2011

OSLO (Reuters) - Norway could begin storing carbon dioxide emissions in porous rock formations under the North Sea from late 2011, a Norwegian feasibility study showed on Thursday.

Gassnova, a state-funded development firm, said its study recommended storage of CO2 in two best suited areas off Norway's western coast and transport to location by pipeline rather than ship. No cost estimates have been revealed.

Norway, one of the world's biggest oil and gas producers, has piled state funds into creating technology to capture and store carbon emissions, initially from two gas-fired power plants to be built in Kaarsto and Mongstad on the west coast.

"A full-scale transport and storage solution could be in operation as early as from late 2011 or early 2012, in time to receive CO2 from ... Kaarsto," Gassnova said. "This assumes that a decision on investments is made by late 2008."

A United Nations study said that carbon capture and storage (CCS) may be one of the best ways to cut emissions of man-made heat-trapping gasses blamed for global warming, but development has been slowed by high costs as well as legal and safety risks.

Norway's plans envisage cooling CO2 gas into a more compact liquid form and injecting it into a porous, water-bearing rock formation, or aquifer, under the seabed through a well.

The location is selected on the rock's ability to safely receive and store carbon dioxide. Legal concerns include the responsibility for maintaining CO2 storage sites.

Gassnova recommended possible CO2 storage in the Johansen formation south-west of Mongstad and in the Utsira formation.

The Kaarsto plant is due to come on stream from late 2011 or early 2012 and the combined heating and power station at Mongstad from 2014 -- with both of the plants needed to provide electricity for Norway's booming oil and gas industry.

A carbon test centre will also be established at Mongstad in 2010 and CO2 from the facility may be shipped to Statoil's Snoehvit plant on the northern tip of Norway, which already injects CO2 extracted from gas back under the seabed.

"The solution now under consideration involves taking CO2 from the Mongstad test centre by ship to the (Snoehvit) LNG plant," Sigve Apeland, project manager at Norwegian pipeline operator Gassco which did part of the study, told Reuters.

"The project could start in 2010 and run up to 2014, when a full-scale transport solution is expected be in operation."

He said the feasibility study showed the long-term transport solution was to build a pipeline to the storage facility -- due to higher shipping costs and challenges in acquiring necessary ships and technical systems by early next decade.