Equinor takes FID on UK’s first carbon capture projects at Teesside

Equinor, alongside project partners, has announced financial close after taking a Final Investment Decision (FID) to progress to execution phase on two of the UK’s first carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in Teesside, the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP) and Net Zero Teesside Power (NZT Power).

“It is a major milestone to have agreed Final Investment Decision and financial close on two of the UK’s first carbon capture, transport and storage infrastructure projects,” Irene Rummelhoff, Executive Vice President of Marketing, Midstream and Processing at Equinor, said in a statement.

“This demonstrates how the industry, alongside the UK Government, have progressed a business model for new power supply and carbon capture, transport and storage services to decarbonise the most carbon intensive region in the UK,” she added.

“We look forward to continued collaboration with our partners and the UK Government as we prepare to progress the projects, with an estimated operational date from 2028 onwards.”

NEP, in which Equinor is a key partner, is the CO2 transportation and storage provider for the East Coast Cluster (ECC), one of the UK Government’s first selected CCS clusters.

The project expects to commence construction from mid-2025 with start-up in 2028. It includes a CO2 gathering network and onshore compression facilities as well as a 145km offshore pipeline and subsea injection and monitoring facilities for the Endurance saline aquifer located around 1000m below the seabed.

It could transport and store up to 4 million tonnes of captured carbon dioxide emissions per year from three Teesside projects initially, rising to an average of up to 23 million tonnes by 2035 with future expansion of the East Coast Cluster, Equinor said.

Equinor is also a partner in NZT Power, which is part of the East Coast Cluster. NZT Power will be a new first-of-a-kind gas-fired power plant with carbon capture, which supports the decarbonisation ambitions across the north-east of England’s industrial regions.

The plant will have the capacity to generate up to 742 megawatts of decarbonised, flexible power, complementing a growing share of intermittent renewable power. This capacity is equivalent to the average electricity demand of around 1 million UK homes. It will have a capacity to capture up to 2 million tonnes of CO2per year for transport and secure storage by the NEP project, Equinor said.

Equinor has a 45 per cent stake in NEP with the remaining 45 per cent owned by bp and 10 per cent by TotalEnergies, and a 25 per cent stake in the NZT Power project with the remaining 75 per cent owned by bp. bp provides operator services on both projects.