Northern Lights JV has signed Swedish utility Öresundskraft for up to 200,000 metric tons of captured CO2 per year, with transport and permanent geological storage starting in late 2029. The contract, backed by a €60 million (~$67.1 million) EU Innovation Fund grant, makes Öresundskraft the venture's seventh industrial customer across four European countries.

The CO2 comes from the Filbornaverket waste-to-energy plant in Helsingborg, which processes municipal waste to produce power and district heating for the surrounding region. Under the agreement, Northern Lights will handle both biogenic and fossil CO2 from the site — a cross-border waste-sector CCS link between Sweden and Norway with a firm start date to track.

How the CO2 gets from Helsingborg to the seabed

The logistics chain is fully specified in the deal. Flue gas from Filbornaverket will run through an amine absorption capture unit, then be chilled and compressed. Trucks move the liquid CO2 roughly down the coast to the Port of Halland in Halmstad, where dedicated LCO2 carriers take over for the sail to Northern Lights' receiving terminal at Øygarden, Norway.

From Øygarden, the CO2 goes by pipeline to an offshore subsea storage reservoir sitting 8,500 feet beneath the seabed. Every step — capture, road, ship, pipeline — is contracted infrastructure, not a concept study. The takeaway: this is a complete, dated cross-border CO2 route for a waste-to-energy facility.

What the deal does to Northern Lights' order book

Öresundskraft is the JV's second Swedish customer after Stockholm Exergi, and it lifts the total roster to seven customers in four European nations. The timing matters for capacity planning.

• Phase 1 infrastructure, built under Norway's national Longship project, is fully operational with 1.5 million tons of annual injection capacity.
• In March 2025, Northern Lights launched Phase 2 expansion works to push total annual storage capacity above 5 million tons.

Phase 1 is built and running; Phase 2 is under construction with a capacity target attached. The seventh customer lands while both are in play.

Why a portfolio approach matters here

Tim Heijn, Managing Director of Northern Lights JV, framed the deal as part of a broader build-out: "Öresundskraft's project contributes to the development of a portfolio approach with shared infrastructure. This will be an enabler of further growth of the CCS industry."

That shared-infrastructure logic is also playing out on the Norwegian side. The adjacent CCB Energy Park is developing localized hub synergies — integrating emissions from carbon-intensive regional operators near the Øygarden processing asset and cutting the infrastructure barrier-to-entry for smaller emitters. In plain terms: each new contracted stream spreads the fixed cost of terminals, ships and wells across more tonnes.

What to watch next

The milestone that decides whether this contract delivers is late 2029 — first CO2 from Filbornaverket into the Northern Lights chain. Before that, watch for the Phase 2 capacity ramp toward the 5-million-ton mark and any further Scandinavian waste-to-energy or industrial emitters signing onto the Øygarden route.