Carbon capture for a new category

The world’s first carbon capture pilot for smelters was officially inaugurated on January 20. Delivered by Aker Carbon Capture, the mobile test unit is now connected to Elkem’s plant in Rana, Norway, which produces high-purity ferrosilicon and microsilica.

The main goal of the project is to verify the technology on real industrial gases from smelters and other process industries, in order to prepare a full-scale plant for industrial carbon capture.

“There is no doubt that we need carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS) to reach our climate targets, and we need CCUS in hard-to-abate industries to keep industrial jobs in Europe,” said Amund Vik, Deputy Minister from the Norwegian Ministry of Petroleum and Energy, at the inauguration ceremony. “This pilot will provide important learning related to CO₂-capture in metal industries, and will be an important hub for other companies in the industrial park to test CO₂-capture technology.”

“The mobile test unit was built in 2008 and has continuously been upgraded in accordance with our latest technology developments,” says Aker Carbon Capture CEO Valborg Lundegaard. “Aker Carbon Capture can therefore offer our customers a unique opportunity to test our technology at their site and de-risk the project prior to a possible full-scale implementation. It is truly great to officially kick off this project today with all our partners in Rana.”

Elkem CEO Helge Aasen added: “Elkem is very pleased to be a part of this pilot. The world needs more metals and other materials to succeed with the green transition, but we also need to achieve lower global CO₂emissions.

“Carbon capture can potentially contribute significantly towards our global climate roadmap of reducing emissions towards net zero while growing supplies to the green transition. At the same time, Elkem is dependent on our stakeholders to enable green technologies at an industrial scale. That is why we are particularly pleased about the good collaboration between several partners in this project, and we will monitor the results of the pilot closely.”