Norway wants to explore hydropower and carbon capture and storage projects in Indonesia

By Florence Tan

SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Norway intends to strengthen cooperation with Indonesia and explore investment opportunities in renewable energy sources such as hydropower and carbon capture and storage, the energy minister said.

“There are many opportunities and some obstacles there, but I hope we can build a stronger partnership in the coming years,” Energy Minister Terje Aasland told Reuters late on Thursday after meeting his counterpart Arifin Tasrif in Jakarta earlier this week.

Norway aims to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. At the same time, it continues to explore and develop new oil and gas deposits, including in the Barents Sea in the Arctic, to sustain peak production expected in 2025.

The country has become Europe’s largest supplier of natural gas after a sharp reduction in Russian supplies since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022.

Norwegian companies can use their experience in hydropower and carbon capture and storage (CCS) in Indonesia to help reduce emissions in the country, Aasland said.

He added that the storage capacity of Norway’s first CCS project, Northern Lights, will be ready this year and is on track to start capturing carbon dioxide from a cement plant in Brevik in May next year.

Aasland met in Singapore on Thursday with representatives of Norwegian companies including Equinor, DNB and Yarra, which are investing in renewable energy, energy storage and alternative fuels such as ammonia in the Asia-Pacific region.

Norway, Western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer, has a combined production of just over 4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd).

Norwegian gas deliveries to Europe are estimated to reach 120 billion cubic metres (bcm) this year, Aasland said, up from 109 bcm in 2023.

“Oil and gas will also play a key role in the coming decades due to the need for energy security and affordable prices,” Aasland said, adding that the country needs to secure the supply chain for the green transformation.

Norway plans to issue permits for seabed exploration in the Arctic next year, hoping to extract minerals needed to make solar panels, wind turbines and electric car batteries needed to replace fossil fuels, but the plan is facing opposition from environmental groups and some European countries.

“Today we are dependent on Russia and China, so we need to diversify the mineral value chain in the coming years and we are investigating how we can develop operations on the Norwegian continental shelf in a sustainable way,” Aasland added.

(Reporting by Florence Tan; additional reporting by Nora Buli in Oslo; editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)