BACKGROUND

A major energy shift is gradually unfolding on the NCS, with the recent announcement of the 5^th CCS licensing round for carbon storage by the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy and the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate (NPD). The Northern Lights project will offer transport and storage of CO₂ as a service across borders and is expected to start commercial operations next year. Denmark and the UK have also recently announced progress in their CCS initiatives. Offshore-wind farm areas are being evaluated on the NCS and in the UK, Denmark, and the Netherlands. The Norwegian Government recently announced the first competitions for two offshore wind areas, the Sørlige Nordsjø II and Utsira Nord. With application deadlines this autumn, we can expect the first licenses to be awarded in early 2024. Looking further out, the Norwegian Water Resources and NPD have identified 20 additional areas on the NCS that might be suitable for offshore wind farms. Site- and license activities, including risk identification and assessment, in addition to monitoring and drilling injection wells for CO2 storage, are activities emerging on the NCS and adjacent areas. However, every site and license is in many respects unique.

The NCS and adjacent areas serve as an excellent laboratory, also powering cross-border knowledge sharing and collaboration. There is a broad variety of sediment composition on NCS, including shallow geology and regionally and stratigraphically changes, providing new energy and storage opportunities, but can also pose risks and challenges. With more than 50 years of exploration and 25 years of storage experience on NCS, technology, and geoscience knowledge transfer play a crucial role in the new energy transition.

Norway is at the forefront of data-sharing and data access, with the whole geoscience ecosystem benefiting from the release of CCS datasets like the Smeheia and Sleipner data sets by Equinor, in addition to vast amounts of data facilitated and released by the NPD and Diskos. Well and seismic data from the NCS is uniquely rich, with complementary big data sets that hold untapped potential and are about to be utilized in technologies and subsurface workflows and evaluations tailored for the new energy systems.

The seal quality and integrity of the caprock or overburden are critical components. A more data-driven understanding of the shallow geology, near subsurface, overburden, and non-cored intervals is essential knowledge for emerging energy industries. These domains are still under-explored, as most seismic acquisitions during the past decades have targeted deeper layers. New marine seismic survey concepts, seismic acquisition, and (re)-processing are needed to illuminate shallow layers while maintaining high survey efficiency. In addition, the unique NCS digital and fast-track cuttings dataset (>700,000 samples analyzed) opens a new landscape of opportunities in our subsurface evaluations, as vast amounts of data about the overburden and non-cored intervals are made available.