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Norway commits to funding Technology Centre Mongstad until end 2023

Original story published by Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM), 23 March 2020

The Norwegian Government is now proposing a continuation of the financial support for the Technologoy Centre Mongstad (TCM) CO2 capture test centre.

– This is very good news. TCM is an important part of the Norwegian carbon capture and storage (CCS) efforts, making significant contributions to the development of a necessary tool to mitigate climate change, says Norwegian Minister of Petroleum and Energy, Tina Bru.

The agreement provides a framework to diminish the reliance on both state aid and contributions from the industrial owners to finance the future operations of the TCM facilities. This is to be achieved through several measures.

– I appreciate that we have reached an agreement with the partners Equinor, Shell and Total to continue the operation of the facilities. The industrial commitment to TCM is very important for the government. The new agreement provides a good foundation to continue the positive development at TCM, says Bru.

Interest from international actors

— We see an increasing interest from international actors to test their technology at TCM. With the new agreement in place, TCM can continue the dialogue and cooperation with these actors to push forward the development of cost-effective capture technology, says Bru.

Since 2012, TCM has played an important role in testing, verifying and demonstrating a number of CO2 capture technologies on an industrial scale, and has garnered considerable recognition from companies and partners worldwide.

— Collaboration is key to ensuring the development and deployment of effective capture technologies in the future. We are very pleased that both the Norwegian government and our industrial owners have renewed their commitment to TCM operations. Now we will continue our efforts to making carbon capture as efficient as possible to combat climate change, says Gassnova’s chairman of TCM, Roy Vardheim.

Industrial scale demonstration of capture technology is an important part of the government’s CCS strategy. The strategy also focuses on research and development through the research program CLIMIT, Centres for Environment-friendly Energy Research (FME), and strong participation in European research programs. A central part of the strategy is the full-scale CCS project in Norway. The decision to continue the operations at TCM is not linked to the on-going work with the investment decision for the full-scale CCS project.

The budgetary implications for 2020 will be presented in connection with the national budget (RNB) 2020.

Photo courtesy of TCM