Equinor has acquired two carbon storage licenses to operate on the NCS

According to NS Energy on April 6, the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy has granted Equinor the right to
operate two carbon dioxide storage licenses in the North Sea and the Barents Sea.

The North Sea license was named Smeaheia, while the Barents Sea license was named Polaris
by the company.

Norwegian Oil and Energy Minister Terje Aasland said: "To meet the world's ambitious climate goals, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is necessary
.
In Norway, we have experience using CCS in the Sleipner and Snøhvit fields, and we know it's possible
.

"The Norwegian government welcomes the development of the Norwegian continental shelf as the main province
for carbon dioxide storage.
"

At Smeaheia, Equinor plans to build a storage capacity
of 20 million tons of carbon dioxide per year.
The company said this involves a significant increase
in the ability of the Norwegian continental shelf (NCS) to store carbon dioxide commercially.

Equinor is a partner in the Northern Lights CO2 Storage Facility in the North Sea, which is part
of a $2.
7 billion long-boat carbon capture and storage project.
The first phase of Northern Lights is planned to inject capacity of 1.
5 million tons per year and will be put into service
in 2024.

The company and its partners plan to increase the production capacity of the Northern Lights to 5-6 million tons
per year from around 2026.

Through these two projects, Equinor hopes to contribute
to reducing CO2 emissions by half Norway's annual emissions.

Irene Rummelhoff, Executive Vice President of Marketing, Midstream and Processing (MMP) at Equinor, said: "We now have over 25 years of experience in CO2 capture and storage on the Norwegian continental shelf and we consider this award to be an important milestone
in the work of making the Norwegian continental shelf a leading province in European carbon dioxide storage.
”

"We are seeing an increase in demand for CO2 storage in some countries and we hope to start developing new CO2 storage devices as soon as possible so that we can provide industrial solutions
that contribute to decarbonisation in Europe.
"

The Norwegian government has granted Polaris carbon dioxide storage licenses to Equinor and its partners V?r Energi and Horison Energi
.
The permit is located almost 100 km off the coast of
Finnmark.

According to Equinor, storage is an important part of
the Barents Blue project.

The Barents Blue project involves the development of an ammonia production plant
in Markoppneset, Hammerfest.
The facility converts natural gas pumped from the Barents Sea into clean blue ammonia and captures and stores
carbon.

The first phase of Polaris development requires the capture, transportation and storage of 2 million tons of carbon dioxide
per year.