Bernhard Schulte, the shipowning arm of the Schulte Group, will soon take delivery of its first liquefied CO2 (LCO₂) carrier.
The vessel was formally named Northern Purpose in a ceremony in China on Tuesday, May 19. Built by Dalian Shipbuilding Offshore in China, the vessel has been custom-designed to transport LCO₂ as part of the Northern Lights project, the world’s first cross-border CO₂ transport and storage infrastructure.
Following her delivery, the vessel will enter a long-term time charter and support the safe and efficient transport of captured CO₂ from industrial customers in Northwest Europe to Norway for permanent geological storage.
Northern Purpose will be operated alongside her earlier sisters Northern Pioneer, Northern Pathfinder, and Northern Phoenix. The newbuild is the first vessel of this type for the Bernhard Schulte fleet and the fourth LCO2 carrier for Northern Lights
All four ships have the same design and have a cargo capacity of 7,500 cubic metresd each, distributed across two cylindrical pressure tanks. They are engineered to safely handle CO₂ at low temperatures and medium pressure, ensuring operational reliability across the entire transport chain.
The four ships are the first of their kind to safely transport CO₂ from European emitters to Northern Lights’ CO₂ receiving terminal at Øygarden, before it is permanently stored beneath the Norwegian continental shelf.