The completed carbon capture facility at Heidelberg Materials鈥� Brevik Cement Factory in Norway in December 2024. Photo: Heidelberg Materials

At Norway鈥檚 largest cement factory in the town of Brevik, a shiny new 100-meter-tall metal pipe stands out next to the grey factory buildings.

Finally achieving mechanical completion in December 2024 after years of planning, this pipe, its owner Heidelberg Materials says, is in the process of trapping the smoke belching out of the factory chimney.

The carbon dioxide in the smoke is then separated from other gasses, compressed into a liquid and stored in a giant tank ready to be transported under the North Sea where it can be locked away forever.

The result, Heidelberg says, is the world鈥檚 first full scale carbon capture and storage (CCS) plant at a cement factory.

鈥淭he significance of this project will be immense, both nationally and internationally,鈥� said Giv Brantenberg, general manager of Heidelberg Materials Northern Europe at a ceremony to mark the completion. 鈥淚t demonstrates that industries like ours can decarbonise themselves and their products.鈥�

Construction of the Brevik Carbon Capture and Storage plant started more than four years ago and has been taking place while the cement plant remains operational 24/7.

The carbon capture technology was delivered by Aker Capture, a spinoff of Norwegian engineering firm Aker Solutions, (now SLB Capturi) on an EPC-basis. FLSmidth delivered filters, ducts, process fans and other equipment. Norconsult provided civil engineering and HAB carried out the main civil contract.

1. Northern Lights, Norway

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr St酶re and Managing Director of Northern Lights Tim Heijn tour the 脴ygarden receiving facility in December 2024. Photo: Northern Lights/ Johannes B忙rhaugen, Forsvaret

Soon the tanks of liquid carbon dioxide from the Brevik plant will be shipped all the way around the country鈥檚 jagged coastline to 脴ygarden, an island on the west coast and then piped along a 100 kilometre pipeline to the Northern Lights storage reservoir 2,600 metres below the seabed of the North Sea which was completed last year by oil companies Equinor, Shell and Total Energies and is expected this year to start receiving up to 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 a year from companies around Norway and northern Europe.

And the Northern Lights project is just one of a slew of carbon capture projects currently taking shape around the world.

According to the Global CCS Institute which monitors the number of CCS projects around the world, at the end of 2024 there were 50 dedicated CCS facilities in operation around the world, an increase on 41 the previous year.

It counted 44 facilities currently under construction, up from just 26 the previous year. Moreover, the total number of planned CCS facilities around the world increased to 628 in 2024, a 60% increase on the previous year.

The USA was the country with the most planned CCS, accounting for 276 in 2024, while the UK came in second place with 65 CCS proposed projects. Canada accounted for 58, Norway 26 and China 25.

鈥淭he global low carbon transition is accelerating, and the CCS pipeline is growing significantly year on year,鈥� said Daniela Peta, public affairs lead at the Global CCS Institute. 鈥淭his growth is driven by supportive policies, funding mechanisms and financial incentives 鈥� critical elements that ensure projects remain economically viable.鈥�

Although CCS technology has been used since the 1950s by oil companies, mostly as a way of increasing oil production from depleted oil fields, since the 2000s it has been gaining popularity as a strategy to mitigate climate change.

As such, projects themselves are changing from pipelines pumping CO2 into depleted gas fields in order to bolster fuel production, to far more sophisticated attempts to either capture carbon emissions from factories and power plants and sequester it deep underground 鈥� or to suck carbon directly out of the air and sell carbon removal credits to companies looking to offset their emissions.

Those in favour say that CCS is an essential tool in the roadmaps drawn up by organisations like the International Energy Agency and the IPCC to limit climate change. Without it, they say many heavy industries (like cement manufacture) will struggle to reach net-zero emissions.

Those against, argue the process inefficient, expensive, has potential for dangerous leaks, and acts as a thinly veiled attempt at greenwashing aimed at perpetuating fossil fuel dependence.

Construction Briefing rounded up four more of the most high-profile carbon capture projects around the world due to come on stream over the next two years.

2. Project Greensand, Denmark

Over in Denmark, 23 partners led by chemical producer Ineos are working up a plan to initially store up to 400,000 tonnes of CO2 annually 1,800 metres below the seabed at the Nini West depleted oil field in the Danish North Sea.

The Greensand Future Project, as it has been named, aims to increase capacity to up to 8 million tonnes annually by 2030 by capturing CO2 from major European industrial sites such as the Ineos Oxide site in Antwerp, Belgium, liquefying it and transporting it by ship to the Nini West oil platform where it will be injected below the seabed.

In March 2023, Project Greensand undertook the first ever injection of CO2 in the North Sea as part of a pilot project at the site. A couple of months later classification society DNV verified the safety of the project鈥檚 CO2 storage.

Last year, the Project Greensand partners took a final investment decision to invest US$150 million in commercial agreements across the entire value chain. The project is due to start commercial operations at the end of 2025 or early 2026 depending on receiving final approvals from the Danish government.

Engineering and construction companies involved in the project include: Danish-based Ramb酶ll, UK-based Aquaterra and Dubai-based Kent.

3. Stratos, Texas

Artist鈥檚 impression of the Stratos DAC facility. Image: 1PointFive

Set to become the world鈥檚 biggest direct air capture (DAC) project when it opens in summer 2025, Stratos, a facility of buildings and pipes on 65 acres in Ector County, Texas, is a US$1 billion project which aims to suck 500,000 tons of CO2 from the atmosphere each year, convert it into a liquid and inject it deep underground. The project is owned by US oil company Occidental Petroleum and has received funding from the US government under former president Joe Biden.

4. Porthos, Netherlands

Last year, the Port of Rotterdam Authority and gas companies Gasunie and EBN started construction work on the Porthos project in the Netherlands, a 鈧�1.3 billion plan to collect CO2 emissions from the plants and factories around the port of Rotterdam and inject them into the depleted P18 gasfield in the North Sea.

Dutch engineering firms Allseas and Denys are set to build a land and sea pipelines totaling 50 kilometres which will take pressurised CO2 gases to a reservoir of porous sandstone rock 3.5 kilometres under the North Sea.

Oil giants Shell and ExxonMobil and hydrogen producers Air Products and Air Liquide plan to use the pipeline to sequester CO2 captured from their refineries and hydrogen plants.

Porthos is expected to be operational in 2026, saving 37 million tonnes of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere. And, if successful, Rotterdam is already planning a second pipeline 鈥� Aramis 鈥� which could remove more than ten times as much carbon dioxide.

5. Northern Endurance Partnership, UK

Northern Endurance Partnership, a joint venture between BP, Equinor and TotalEnergies expects to start construction of its 拢4 billion (US$4.9 billion) megaproject to build a CO2 transportation and storage infrastructure on Teesside after it reached financial close in December.

The undertaking, which also includes plans to build Net Zero Teesside Power, one of the world鈥檚 first commercial scale gas fired power stations with carbon capture, plans to transport compressed carbon dioxide via a 145-kilometre pipeline to the Endurance saline aquifer, around 1,000 meters below the seabed of the southern North Sea.

NEP selected nine contractors to complete the project last year. They include a consortium comprising Balfour Beatty, Technip Energies and GE Vernova to provide onshore power, capture and compression. Costain has been selected to provide an onshore CO2 gathering system and gas connection. Saipem will deliver the offshore pipeline while UK-based engineering firm Wood will act as project manager.

The team says it is aiming to start commercial operations from 2027.