CO2 Highway Europe (CO2HE) could be a game changer for CO2 transport and storage in Northwestern Europe. The project plans to connect European customers with CO2 storage sites in the North Sea via the offshore CO2 Highway Europe pipeline.
annual capacity for CO2 transport and storage from early 2030s
offshore pipeline to the Norwegian continental shelf
with additional future storage sites
Our ambition with CO2 Highway Europe is to develop large-scale cross-border transport and storage solutions which would entail a major increase in commercial CCS capacity on a global scale.
Developing CO2 transport and storage at speed and scale is essential for Europe to reach its climate goals by reducing CO2 emissions in hard-to-abate industries such as steel, cement, and chemical production.
CO2HE is a CO2 transport and storage project intended to connect Smeaheia and other CO2 reservoirs on the Norwegian continental shelf to Northwestern European emitters via an offshore CO2 pipeline. The pipeline will connect to CO2 export terminals in Zeebrugge, Belgium, and Dunkirk, France, with a potential future connection to the Netherlands and other European countries.
The initial capacity will be 18 million tonnes of CO2 per year and can be further boosted to 27 million tonnes in a later phase depending on market interest. The pipeline is planned to come onstream in early 2030s, but an investment decision is dependent on sufficient customer commitment.
Since the project was initiated, Equinor has performed several feasibility studies and matured the technical concept and routing of the pipeline.
In 2024, an offshore pipeline routing survey was performed. A total area of 386 km2 was covered in the geophysical survey. The pipeline will cross six economic zones offshore, including Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France.
In addition to Smeaheia Equinor has been awarded two other storage licences, which can provide additional storage capacity in the future.
Watch this short film about Equinor’s ambitions for a new 1000 km long pipeline - CO2 Highway Europe – connecting European industrial emitters with massive storage reservoirs like Smeaheia in the North Sea.
Strategic partnerships are being developed with key European players to ensure that onshore CO2 infrastructure and export terminals are developed along a common timeline, including Fluxys in Belgium and NaTran in France. In these partnerships we will bring complementary expertise and experience to the project to create and strengthen a viable business case.
Equinor has received funding under the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) funding scheme for onshore and offshore infrastructure FEED together with partners Fluxys and NaTran.
In July Equinor signed a Memorandum of Understanding together with Belgian grid operator Flyxus and German grid operator OGE. Together we aim to develop infrastructure for transport of CO2 from industrial clusters in Germany and Belgium for permanent storage facilities on the Norwegian continental shelf. This MOU aims to strengthen cross border collaboration and drive decarbonization of Belgian and German industry.
In November 2025, the Flemish and Walloon governments signed a joint declaration with 17 industrial companies, including Equinor, committing to accelerate the deployment of CCS in Belgium. The declaration emphasizes the need for cross-sector collaboration and coordinated planning to enable large-scale CO₂ reductions. It also highlights the role of regional authorities in facilitating early network development, helping projects like CO₂ Highway Europe reach commercial decisions and scale faster.
Equinor has been developing groundbreaking CCS solutions since 1996, including Sleipner, Snøhvit, Technology Centre Mongstad (TCM), Northern Lights, Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP).
Equinor is the pioneer of industrial CCS with nearly three decades of operational experience across several projects in the North Sea region. Building on what we learned from Sleipner and Snøhvit, Equinor is developing more international collaborative projects like Northern Lights and CO2 Highway Europe in Norway and the Northern Endurance Partnership off the coast of the United Kingdom.
Equinor has ambitions to develop further storage licences in the North Sea in the coming years with the aim of building a common, pipeline-based infrastructure that can contribute to substantial cost reductions for the CCS value chains.
Collaboration between industries, governments and organisations is crucial to succeed, and the EU2NSEA project is very important to pave the way for European CCS deployment at scale.
The CO2 Highway Europe project contributes to the EU2NSEA, a project of common interest (PCI) under the EU TEN-E regulation, where Equinor acts as coordinator. The EU2NSEA PCI aims at developing a resilient, scalable onshore and offshore pipeline-based system enabling the transport and storage of CO2 from North-West Europe to the North Sea.
In January 2025 the European Commission announced the recipients of the latest round of Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) funds. Several of the EU2NSEA projects from the 2022 PCI, including CO2 Highway Europe-project, received a total of around €30M.
It includes 16 emitters in 10 countries, 31 capture sites, and storage of around 34 million tonnes of CO2 per year at two storage sites in the North Sea.
The CO2 Highway Europe project aims to develop a cost-effective CO2 quality specification that maintains safety, integrity and operational reliability throughout the value chain in close collaboration with our partners.
Our approach builds on previous experience and strong industry collaboration, using a robust methodology based on state-of-the-art thermodynamic modelling, extensive research, and laboratory testing conducted by a team of highly skilled experts for over a decade.