Heidelberg sells out of net-zero cement from Norway plant, CEO says

By Nora Buli

BREVIK, Norway (Reuters) -Germany's Heidelberg Materials has pre-sold all the cement it will produce this year from a Norwegian production line upgraded with zero-emissions technology, its CEO said on Wednesday, as builders seek to reduce their carbon footprint.

Traditional cement production is responsible for around 8% of global CO2, generating huge emissions volumes not only from the coal used to heat kilns, but also during the critical process of converting limestone into clinker.

It is considered a "hard to abate" sector, meaning mitigating emissions is particularly difficult.

The CO2 capture facility at Heidelberg's factory in Brevik, southern Norway, will capture around 400,000 metric tons of CO2 per year.

That represents 50% of the plant's emissions, allowing for the production of a net-zero product dubbed evoZero, Heidelberg CEO Dominik von Achten told Reuters at the facility's official opening.

The Brevik plant has annual production capacity of just over one million tons of cement, around half of which will be produced under the evoZero brand.

"We are not going to produce the full amount this year as the plant is ramping up. But we are sold out for 2025 and we continue to fill the order book," he said.

Though more expensive than regular cement, von Achten said evoZero offers benefits to customers looking to decarbonise their construction projects.

The facility is part of Norway's heavily subsidised Longship carbon capture and storage project aimed at commercialising the emissions reduction technology.

If widely adopted, Norwegian policymakers say the technology would help the world reach the Paris climate agreement's targets and curb global warming.

The government is paying two-thirds of Longship's estimated cost of around 30 billion crowns ($3 billion), which includes CO2 capture at a waste plant in Oslo and storage deep below the seabed at the Northern Lights site in western Norway.

"What the Norwegian government did is to de-risk the project for the parties involved," von Achten said, adding that, without it, the project would not have been possible.

The CO2 removed at Brevik will be loaded onto purpose-built carriers and shipped to the Northern Lights facility, which opened last year and is co-owned by Shell, Equinor and TotalEnergies.

"We know that the hard to abate sectors and the difficult industrial sectors that have no alternative need CO2 capture and storage as part of the solution," Norway's Energy Minister Terje Aasland told Reuters.

It is not currently clear how long the government will subsidise the construction of new CCS projects. The industry will need to build a viable business case and commercialise the products CCS makes possible, both Aasland and von Achten said.

($1 = 9.9540 Norwegian crowns)

(Reporting by Nora Buli; Editing by Terje Solsvik and Joe Bavier)