Recipient organisationBp Exploration Operating Company Limited
Funding£24.0M
PeriodMar 2021 — Aug 2023
In plain English
AI plain-English summary
The Northern Endurance Partnership is building an offshore CO₂ transport and storage system to connect two industrial clusters—Humber and Teesside—into a single geological store beneath the Southern North Sea. This matters because these two regions together produce nearly half of the UK’s industrial CO₂ emissions. Without a shared offshore pipeline and storage site, decarbonising their heavy industries—power plants, chemical parks, and hydrogen production—would remain technically and economically fragmented. The project fills the gap between onshore carbon capture and permanent geological storage, a missing link in the UK’s net-zero strategy. If successful, the system will enable the world’s first large-scale combination of gas power with carbon capture, blue hydrogen production, and shared offshore CO₂ storage. This could transform how industrial regions decarbonise, creating a replicable model for other clusters. The project also underpins a new market for carbon capture and hydrogen services, with potential for cross-border trade with mainland Europe. It supports the UK’s Clean Growth strategy by securing a green recovery and driving economic growth in regions hit hardest by the pandemic.
View original technical description
Together, the Humber and Teesside represent almost half of the UK's industrial CO2 emissions. The Northern Endurance Partnership will create an offshore CO2 Transport and Storage system connecting two innovative First-of-a-Kind onshore capture projects, Zero Carbon Humber and Net Zero Teesside into one initial geological store facilitating decarbonisation of both industrial clusters in the 2030s. This bp led project leverages world class expertise from across industry including ENI, Equinor, NGV, Shell and Total with confirmed support from many more stakeholders and subcontractors. The combined onshore anchor projects initially aim to capture ~3 million tonnes of CO2 annually from 2026, decarbonising 750MW of flexible power at Teesside and reducing emissions by 1 million tonnes annually in Humber through fuel switching the Saltend chemicals park to Blue Hydrogen. CO2 will be permanently and safely stored in Endurance, a well understood large geological aquifer located in the Southern North Sea. The projects address widely accepted strategic national priorities -- most notably to secure green recovery and drive new jobs and economic growth in the regions which have been most hit by the pandemic. Developing gas power generation with Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) will deliver on the Chancellor's pledge to "support the construction of the UK's first CCUS power plant" (Budget 2020). In addition, the Committee on Climate Change identified both gas power with CCUS and hydrogen production from gas with CCUS (Blue Hydrogen) as critical to the UK's decarbonisation strategy -- this project will enable both. The £41mn industry contribution coupled with £24mn grant funding should enable Humber and Teesside to subsequently build these multi-billion-pound decarbonisation projects. Gas power with CCUS, large scale Blue Hydrogen and a combined offshore CCUS scheme will be world firsts playing a pivotal role in the UK's trajectory to net-zero. This project has the potential to underpin over 25,500 jobs in the Humber/Teesside area, showcasing a broad range of decarbonisation technologies, globally unparalleled in scale, optionality and ambition. This partnership will underpin the UK's Clean Growth strategy, securing green recovery and kickstarting a new market for CCUS and Hydrogen, with potential for trade across mainland Europe developing into the future.
Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.
Is something wrong? Let us know