Northern Lights JV has unveiled plans to significantly enlarge its dedicated CO2 transport fleet, striking long-term charter agreements this week for four new liquefied carbon dioxide vessels. Three of the ships will be 12,000 m³ capacity carriers under contracts with a consortium led by Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha (“K” LINE) and MISC Berhad and additional tonnage with Mitsui O.S.K. Lines.
The moves mark a step up from the smaller 7,500 m³ sisterships delivered since late 2024 and reflect the growing commercial pipeline for trans-European CO2 logistics.
“With an expanded fleet, we will be able to deliver on our commitments to our customers. It will also enable us to optimise operations and increase flexibility. This demonstrates a further maturation of the market, increasing the number of participants. Together we are pioneers in building the first dedicated CO2 shipping fleet. This experience will benefit Northern Lights, our customers and the CCS industry for the years to come”, said Tim Heijn, Managing Director in Northern Lights.
The contracts follow a global tender and extend Northern Lights’ ability to ship captured emissions from industrial sites across continental Europe to its receiving terminal on Norway’s west coast. The expanded fleet is aligned with signed customer commitments and the project’s Phase 2 goal of boosting transport and storage throughput to more than 5 million tonnes per year by 2028. Construction is under way at yards in China and South Korea and the newbuilds are due for delivery between the second half of 2028 and the first half of 2029.
Northern Lights’ experience so far includes multiple vessel deliveries and operations under Norway’s Longship project, a flagship full-chain carbon capture and storage (CCS) network that includes shipping, pipeline and subsea injection. The expanded fleet is intended to increase operational flexibility and help meet growing demand from hard-to-abate sectors seeking to decarbonize via carbon capture and storage.
Northern Lights is part of the world’s first cross-border commercial CO2 transport and storage service, having begun storage operations and the first injections under the seabed in 2025. It has secured commercial offtake agreements with industrial emitters in Sweden, the Netherlands and elsewhere as Europe builds CCS infrastructure to help meet net-zero targets.
The expansion saw a major investment decision in 2025 to scale capacity from 1.5 Mt to more than 5 Mt per year by 2028, backed by EU funding and partner commitments.
The project also crossed a major threshold recently after it issued its first certificates verifying permanent CO2 storage at the offshore Aurora reservoir, confirming captured carbon had been shipped, piped and injected into a geological formation 2,600 meters (8530 feet).
Read more: Northern Lights Issues First Certificates Confirming Offshore CO2 Storage
