courtesy Statoil

A mobile carbon-scrubbing construction will be tested in May at the Shell-Statoil carbon-dioxide project at Risavika, just outside Stavanger, it was learned Tuesday.

Canadian supplier Cansolv is one of three suppliers to the full-scale Halten CO2 project at Tjeldbergodden central Norway. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Fluor are the other carbon sequestration companies employed in the tests.

The companies are vying for a contract to stop 2.5 million tonnes a year from flowing into the atmosphere at a future 850 Megawatt gas-plant on the Tjeldbergodden site.

“The chosen supplier can expect attention far across Norway’s border should the project be realized,” a Shell Norway statement said.

Cansolv is the only C02-tech outfit hitherto allowed to test technology in Norway. Mitsubishi and Fluor have tested their products at home.

Cansolv is dwarfed by the two industrial giants, but “sits on solid knowledge on the separating of carbon from natural gas”, although the plan is to separate 85 percent of the C02 from the power plant’s exhaust passages.

The Halten CO2 project announced a year ago is slated to be the world’s biggest sequestration and storage operation for carbon. Carbon from the plant will be injected offshore at the Draugen and Heidrun fields in the North Sea.

Final budget decisions are due by year-end 2008, and start-up by 2012.

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