UK issues grants for three carbon projects

Offshore staff

STAVANGER, Norway – Equinor has secured funding from UK authorities for three CO₂ emissions projects in northeast England.

The collective aim of the company and its partners is to create the world’s first net zero industrial cluster by 2040.

Funds will be issued under the UK’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to the following project consortia:

• Zero Carbon Humber (ZCH), a 12-company partnership targeting step-wise deployment of low-carbon hydrogen, carbon capture and negative emissions at sites across the Humber estuary. The first is the Equinor-led H2H Saltend low-carbon hydrogen facility and a hydrogen and carbon dioxide (CO₂) pipeline network across Humber industrial sites developed by National Grid Ventures.
• Net Zero Teesside (NZT), a five-company partnership seeking to decarbonize the Teesside industrial cluster via carbon capture and to construct a new gas-fired power station using carbon capture technology.
• Northern Endurance Partnership, operated by bp (the other participants are Equinor, Eni, National Grid, Shell, and Total), which plans to develop offshore CO₂ transport and storage infrastructure in the UK North Sea serving both ZCH and NZT.

The three successful bids attracted £229 million ($318.7 million) in private and public funding, with Equinor and its partners contributing more than two-thirds of this.

In each case, the money will be used to progress the project through the detailed engineering and design stages to the point where a final investment decision can be taken.

03/17/2021