(upbeat music)
-: The past couple of years have seen a lot of change
in the energy markets in Europe.
Changes around energy security,
changes around energy transition.
As a leading gas pipeline and midstream operator,
how are you thinking
about the energy transition in Europe?
-: You know, after the war started
and also the events in the Eastern Sea,
of course, we know,
how important it is
for Europe to receive reliable Norwegian gas.
So we have done, of course, a lot to make sure that
we are, as we have been,
a reliable supplier to Europe.
And also the results lately have proven that.
We have in fact, delivered what we call winter volumes
in summertime last year.
-: How are you thinking about energy transition,
the transition to green gas electrification,
as a threat, as an opportunity, or as both?
-: It's an opportunity.
We do forecast for how much gas can we deliver
from the Norwegian Continental Shelf
and how can we utilize the Norwegian grid,
which is 9,000 kilometers of offshore pipelines,
you know, with the size of over 40 inches.
How can we utilize this?
So firstly,
we collect data from all fields
on a Norwegian Continental Shelf,
and we put that into a transport plan.
So that transport plan then tells us,
when is the capacity available to use that capacity
for other sources than natural gas.
And that's my kind of key into renewables.
Also,
CCS,
carbon capture and storage,
utilizing the pipeline system for CO2
and then the possibility to also produce hydrogen
from natural gas.
-: In terms of existing pipelines,
possible blending of hydrogen,
possible blending of biomethane, e-methane,
how do you think about the opportunity
for blending hydrogen in your pipelines?
-: My starting point as an operator,
is that there are, you know, there are
market who wants to have this as a new opportunity,
a mix of natural gas and hydrogen.
But then, I also need to look at the producers.
So when there are concrete kind of producers,
which have projects launched and come to Gassco
and say that, "We have this project with this volume,
we need to transport it to the market."
What is the best solution to do so?
How can we set this up to get this going?
So that's our job.
-: It's obvious that in the past 18 months,
after the invasion of Ukraine,
the role of Norway as an energy partner
for Continental Europe has changed
to, from important to extremely important.
When we do the math, the transportation of some of these
new gases and fuels and pipeline
is by far superior from a cost and efficiency point of view.
If you are Norway, Inc.,
Norway as a whole society,
why not lean ahead?
Why not build as many hydrogen ready pipelines south
and as many carbon ready pipelines north as possible,
knowing that that will put the country
as a whole on the left hand side of the supply curve
for Europe for a century?
-: Firstly, if you look at the development
on the Norwegian Continental Shelf,
starting with I think kind of,
going into new value chains,
which is maybe the most important thing
and that is to establish the CO2 value chain.
We have six licenses
on the Norwegian Continental Shelf for storage of CO2.
We started with this on the Norwegian Continental Shelf
in the mid-nineties.
Now, we see that there's a lot of projects
on these licenses coming up.
So we have a kind of a trunk line with CO2.
-: Yeah.
-: Which we can then utilize for CO2
from Norway,
from hydrogen production,
but also to take CO2 from the continent
and back to Norway Esben: Yes.
-: to store it on the Norwegian Continental Shelf.
-: Yes, I look at the plans
from the European organization of TSOs.
I look at the plans from Brussels, from the commission,
and I look at history in terms of the speed
with which we've built out these types of infrastructures.
And I look at those two
and what we've done the last 50 years,
we now need to do in the next five.
So it's an eight or 10 times speed,
if I just look at the Frode: Yeah.
-: at the number of capacities of pipe you need to put in.
Are you seeing a step change in the way we do things
or is this dreaming?
-: The most concrete plan we have is to establish
a hydrogen pipeline within 2030.
That is only seven years.
What we have done now, is that this is,
this is based on volume.
So there are two concrete projects in a way,
which gives the volume to this pipeline system.
And that is very concrete,
but it will be possible.
If we,
as the plan is to develop the specification,
which we are doing now,
and if there are kind of agreements
within the producers and the sellers to kind of,
make sure that there is enough volume
to take the investment decision,
then I think it's possible.
I don't say it's easy.
But if I look at the plan, it's possible.