UK Industrial Base Picked for CCUS Plant

Producers' group, OGCI Climate Investments, has agreed with BP, Eni, Equinor, Occidental Petroleum, Shell and Total to move forward with the UK’s first commercial full-chain carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) project in the industrial heartland of Teesside, it said November 27.

CCS, or CCUS as it has latterly become, is key to achieving climate change limitation goals in the International Energy Agency's optimistic scenarios, among other outlooks; but so far its application has been limited commercially to projects where injecting CO2 can improve oil recovery rates. The UK has already flirted with CCS schemes once before, but the government of the day withdrew its planned funding after announcing a competition, leaving the projects at the planning stage. 

This plan will combine CO2 capture from gas-fired power generation and local industrial emitters in Teesside and inject it into a formation under the Southern North Sea. The infrastructure created would enable industrial clusters in Teesside and elsewhere to capture and store CO₂ from their processes. The clean CO₂ could also attract CO₂-utilisation companies, revitalising the region with new technologies and investment. As the project progresses, the team will be looking for additional partners across the full value chain. It is anticipated that the project will then progress toward engineering design in 2019, the OGCI said.

OGCI Climate Investments has four investments in CCUS and is exploring several early stage CCUS projects for future investment with the goal of utilising the knowledge gained in advancing the Clean Gas Project. In 2019, the OGCI and Climate Investments will focus on significant collaborative efforts to inject momentum into a global CCUS industry.