ORLEN Upstream Norway, part of Poland’s ORLEN Group and formerly known as PGNiG Upstream Norway (PUN), has decided to withdraw from the Polaris CO2 exploration license, the only CO2 storage located in the Barents Sea, with Horisont Energi now assessing the way forward for the project.

The Polaris license is located several hundred meters below the seabed in the Barents Sea, 140 kilometers off Hammerfest, Norway. The reservoir was planned as a key component for the planned Barents Blue ammonia plant, with captured CO2 from the sequestration of natural gas and production of blue ammonia set to be stored in the Polaris reservoir. In addition, the reservoir will be available for third-party storage.