A carbon capture storage facility at Statoil’s Mongstad plant was originally planned to be built in 2014. In an effort to curb national emissions, the government agreed to finance over 75 percent of the total cost of the two-stage construction of the facility. Statoil is responsible for 20 percent.
But the plan has faced delays due to technological setbacks and health and environmental risk concerns. The government has put forward a case to parliament to further test the amine technology which makes use of amine solvent, an organic compound, to wash out carbon dioxide out of a gas mixture such as flue gas.
Amines allegedly pose risk to health and environment such as cancer, potable water contamination and adverse effects on aquatic organisms.
Statoil reportedly said the qualification process of the technology may take up three years, plus two years for the engineering phase.
But environmental group Bellona Foundation said the delay is unnecessary because there are already measures to deal with the problems being presented by Statoil.
“Statoil is inflating the risk somewhat brutally here. It appears that they exaggerate the risk to further delay the CCS project as much as possible,” said Bellona adviser Erlend Fjøsna.
“Statoil is reluctant to make big investments in [carbon capture storage] technology before it is outright forced to, and the government does not seem to be willing to play hardball,” he added.
The Mongstad oil refinery spewing 1.3 million tons of carbon dioxide yearly, is one of Norway’s largest sources of carbon dioxide. Norway emitted 2.33 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2009.
The first stage of the carbon capture project was planned to be completed this year. The second stage involves the construction of the full carbon capture storage facility.
Environmentalists at Oslo-based Bellona said the climate agreement formed in the Norwegian parliament can hardly be achieved without doing something about the large emission point at Mongstad.
They added that the delay will have an impact on Norway’s climate policies locally and on the work on carbon capture storage internationally.
