Costain and its partners have completed a key milestone in the journey toward delivering the UK’s first fully decarbonised industrial cluster by completing the first phase of the engineering design for the onshore CO2 gathering pipelines.
The work so far completed by the Costain team – which included Mott MacDonald – will benefit the Northern Endurance Partnership, the CO2 transportation and storage company that will serve the ECC carbon capture and storage project.
When finished, the CO2 emitted from various Teesside industries will be captured, transported, and stored under the North Sea.
The pipeline networks will take the CO2 from a variety of carbon capture projects, including Net Zero Teesside Power’s CCGT generating station, which will be the world’s first commercial-scale gas-fired power station with carbon capture.
The team, based in Redcar at the Wilton Centre, used laser scanning and modelling techniques to design the route for the new CO2 gathering network, which includes the crossing of the river Tees, natural gas pipeline, and high voltage infrastructure.
The front-end engineering design (FEED) was carried out for the Northern Endurance Partnership and Net Zero Teesside Power.
The area was selected by the UK government as a track 1 cluster as part of the cluster sequencing process for carbon capture, usage, and storage in 2021.
The ECC is set to launch its first commercial operations by 2027.
‘Vital’ scheme
Sam White, Costain’s natural resources managing director, said: “The East Coast Cluster has the potential to capture and store up to 23m tonnes of CO2 a year and make a huge contribution to the UK’s net-zero goals.
“Innovative schemes like this one are vital to ensure we grow regional economies in a sustainable way.”
Ben Ken, Northern Endurance Partnership deputy director, said: “The successful design of the Northern Endurance Partnership’s onshore CO2 pipeline network on Teesside is a key milestone for the wider East Coast Cluster, which has a crucial role to play in decarbonising the industrial powerhouse regions of Teesside and the Humber.”
Image: pauljrobinson/Shutterstock
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