National Grid Carbon Limited (NGC) has awarded the multi-million pound front end engineering and design (FEED) contract for its carbon capture and storage pipeline to oil and gas engineering firm Genesis (a Technip subsidiary).
Genesis Oil and Gas Consultants will carry out the risk evaluation and cost estimates as well as the engineering and design work associated with the transportation and storage system. The system will run from Drax power station in Humberside to the storage site in the North Sea.
This follows the Government’s announcement last December that the White Rose project could begin its FEED study as part of its CCS commercialisation program. National Grid Carbon is providing the transportation and storage elements for the CCS project.
National Grid Carbon is working with Capture Power Limited, a consortium of Alstom, Drax, and BOC on the White Rose project to capture carbon dioxide emissions from Drax and store them permanently in the North Sea.
Peter Boreham, National Grid Director of European Business Development said: “We are delighted that Genesis won through this competitive process and are now on board to provide their expertise to plan and develop the project. It’s another step on the way to demonstrating that CCS has an important part to play in the future energy mix.”
John Cambridge, Genesis Managing Director said: “This is a flagship project for the UK and one Genesis is extremely proud to be part of. We believe our skills in developing optimised onshore, offshore and subsea facilities will be extremely important in enabling NGC to achieve a successful outcome."
The onshore and offshore pipeline infrastructure will have the capacity to transport up to 17 million tonnes of CO2 a year with the White Rose project requiring about 2 million tonnes. The CO2 would then be pumped in liquid form under high pressure into natural rock formations over a kilometre beneath the North Sea seabed for permanent storage.