The Crown Estate for England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, has awarded an Agreement for Lease to BP for what it said could become one of the world’s largest carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects.
The agreement will allow BP to further progress its planned ‘Endurance’ CCS project, a reservoir in the rock deep below the North Sea which would be used to store hard-to-abate carbon emissions captured from carbon-intensive heavy industry in Teesside and Humberside.
"The scale of the project means it has the potential to substantially decarbonize the UK’s industrial emissions, significantly supporting UK Government ambitions to capture and store 20–30 MtCO2 per year by 2030," the Crown Estate said.
The Agreement for Lease allows for construction, CO2 injection, as well as monitoring and decommissioning.
"The announcement is a significant milestone in the maturation of carbon capture, usage and storage (CCS) – a technology dubbed by the Climate Change Committee as a ‘necessity not an option’ if the UK is to meet its 2050 net zero target, and a technology that promises huge benefits, supporting jobs and communities, while driving forward the nation’s energy security and net zero ambitions," the Crown Estate said.
Endurance forms part of the Northern Endurance Partnership’s (NEP) East Coast Cluster, which in October 2021 was selected as one of the first clusters in phase-1 of the UK Government’s CCS cluster sequencing process. The cluster also benefits from a license awarded by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA).
Chris Daykin, the managing director of the Northern Endurance Partnership, said: “The East Coast Cluster has a critical role to play in the delivery of UK decarbonization, with the ability to remove almost 50% of the UK’s total industrial cluster emissions. Award of this Agreement for Lease marks another important step in the development of the Northern Endurance Partnership CO2 transport and storage system, and accelerates the efforts being made to decarbonize the UK’s industrial heartlands. We welcome The Crown Estate’s support on that journey.”
