Wintershall Dea awarded its first CO2 licence in Norway
- Wintershall Dea awarded operatorship of “Luna” CO2 storage licence in Norwegian North Sea
- Licence provides storage potential of more than 5 million tonnes CO2 per year
- Important steppingstone for ambitions to establish extensive CCS value chain and become a leading player in carbon management
Wintershall Dea and its partner CapeOmega have been awarded a CO2 storage licence in the Norwegian North Sea by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy. Wintershall Dea will be operator of the Luna licence which is located 120km west of Bergen, and is estimated to hold a CO2 storage injection capacity of up to 5 million tonnes per year.
As Europe’s leading independent gas and oil company, with ambitions to build a broad carbon management business, Wintershall Dea sees the award as an important building block towards developing the Norwegian Continental Shelf into a leading CO2 storage area in Europe.
“This award marks a new chapter of our activities in Norway. With our proven track record, our subsea expertise and our ambition to contribute to Europe’s climate goals, we are ideally placed to help deliver the infrastructure Norway needs to become a hub for European carbon storage,” said Hugo Dijkgraaf, Chief Technical Officer at Wintershall Dea.
Wintershall Dea and CapeOmega are both working intensively on the further development of Norway’s energy infrastructure and are focused on driving forward decarbonisation.
CEO of CapeOmega, Evy Glørstad, said: “This award is very important for CapeOmega and illustrates our efforts and strategy to provide infrastructure for the energy transition. We have worked closely with Wintershall Dea, sharing the same ambitions and goals to contribute in reducing the CO2 footprint in Europe. As partner, we are also willing to fast-track the development in a new partnership. We look forward to maturing Luna with Wintershall Dea and continue investing in decarbonisation.”
Wintershall Dea regards the award of the Luna licence as an important milestone in the development of an extensive Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) value chain, connecting European heavy industry with North Sea basins capable of storing carbon emissions. Germany is the largest emitters of CO2 in Europe, while Norway has the largest storage potential for CCS.
The company also plans to build a CO2 hub in Wilhelmshaven, CO2nnectNow, on the German North Sea coast to enable the collection and transport of carbon dioxide.
In August, Wintershall Dea signed a co-operation agreement with Equinor to pursue the development of a CCS value chain connecting continental European CO2 emitters with offshore storage sites on the Norwegian Continental Shelf. CCS is essential for heavy industries’ economic and environmental viability, which are producing crucially important products like cement, steel and chemicals from industrial sectors employing millions of Europeans.
Wintershall Dea has been a reliable partner in the Norwegian oil and gas sector for almost 50 years. This licence award shows that the company intends to develop its presence at the Norwegian Continental Shelf for the next decades to come.
Wintershall Dea is operator of the licence with 60 per cent of the shares. CapeOmega has 40 per cent of the shares.
About Wintershall Dea
Wintershall Dea is Europe’s leading independent natural gas and oil company with more than 120 years of experience as an operator and project partner along the entire E&P value chain. The company with German roots and headquarters in Kassel and Hamburg explores for and produces gas and oil in 13 countries worldwide in an efficient and responsible manner. With activities in Europe, Russia, Latin America and the MENA region (Middle East & North Africa), Wintershall Dea has a global upstream portfolio and, with its participation in natural gas transport, is also active in the midstream business. More in our Annual Report.
As a European gas and oil company, we support the EU's 2050 carbon neutrality target. As our contribution we have set ourselves ambitious targets: We want to be net zero across our entire upstream operations – both operated and non-operated – by 2030. This includes Scope 1 (direct) and Scope 2 (indirect) greenhouse gas emissions on an equity share basis. Wintershall Dea will also bring its methane emissions intensity below 0.1 per cent by 2025 and maintain zero routine flaring of associated gas in its operations. In addition, we plan to reduce emissions resulting from the use of hydrocarbons by applying CCS and low-carbon hydrogen technologies, potentially building up a business abating 20-30 million tonnes of CO2 per annum by 2040. You can find more about this in our Sustainability Report.
Wintershall Dea was formed from the merger of Wintershall Holding GmbH and DEA Deutsche Erdoel AG, in 2019. Today, the company employs around 2,500 people worldwide from almost 60 nations.
