UK: BP Awards FEED Contracts for Teesside Power, Carbon Capture and Compression Project

BP – the operator of Net Zero Teesside Power (NZT Power) and the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP) – has awarded contracts as part of its dual Front End Engineering Design (FEED) competition to two separate consortiums of engineering, carbon capture licensors, power providers and EPC contractors.

In October 2021, the UK government selected the Northern Endurance Partnership’s East Coast Cluster as one of the first two clusters be taken forward as part of its Carbon Capture and Storage (CCUS) cluster sequencing process. The Northern Endurance partnership, which BP leads as operator, will provide the common infrastructure needed to transport CO2 from emitters across the Humber and Teesside to secure offshore storage in the Endurance aquifer in the Southern North Sea.

 "The [FEED] awards represent an important next step towards the proposed development of the UK’s first full-scale integrated power and carbon capture project. Investing in carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) is a key point of the UK Government’s ten-point plan for a green industrial revolution, announced in November 2020," BP said.

The two groups will now design and submit development plans for NZT Power’s proposed power station and carbon capture plant, and NEP’s planned Teesside high pressure carbon dioxide (CO₂₎ compression and export facilities.

The two selected contractor groups are Technip Energies and General Electric consortium:  led by Technip Energies and including Shell as a subcontractor for the provision of the licensed Cansolv CO₂ capture technology and Balfour Beatty as the nominated construction partner;  and Aker Solutions Doosan Babcock and Siemens Energy consortium: led by Aker Solutions and including Aker Carbon Capture as a subcontractor for the provision of the licensed CO₂ capture technology.

The two consortiums will each deliver a comprehensive FEED package, led from their UK offices, over the next 12 months. Following the completion of the FEED process, the two consortiums will then submit Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) proposals for the execution phase. As part of the Final Investment Decision expected in 2023, a single consortium will be selected to take the project forward into construction.   

• UK Gov't to Support Two CCUS Clusters. Scottish Cluster Left as 'Reserve'

Louise Kingham, BP’s UK head of country and senior vice president of Europe said: “Moving to Front End Engineering Design is a major step forward for Net Zero Teesside Power and the development of the Northern Endurance Partnership. This first-of-a-kind project has the potential to deliver enough low carbon, flexible electricity to power around 1.3 million homes, and can help secure Teesside’s position at the green heart of the country’s energy transition”.

 Andy Lane, MD Northern Endurance Partnership, said: “The Northern Endurance Partnership will play a key role in the UK’s journey to Net Zero, by providing the transportation and storage infrastructure which enables the decarbonization of a range of industries across Teesside and the Humber too.

"Today’s news is a clear signal of momentum within the East Coast Cluster following our selection in October as one of the UK’s first two carbon capture and storage clusters by the UK Government.”

NZT Power, a joint venture between bp and Equinor, is a gas fired-power station fully integrated with carbon capture. The project is expected to provide flexible, dispatchable low carbon electricity to complement the growing deployment of intermittent forms of renewable energy such as wind and solar, BP said.

The contracts also include FEED for NEP’s Teesside facilities that will gather and compress CO₂ from NZT Power and other regional sources and export it offshore for permanent sub-surface storage in the Endurance carbon store. NEP will also take CO₂ captured from a range of projects in the Humber region as part of the East Coast Cluster. The Northern Endurance Partnership is a joint venture between bp, Equinor, National Grid Ventures, Shell and TotalEnergies.

 "Taking emissions from both the Teesside and Humber regions, the East Coast Cluster has the potential to transport and securely store nearly 50% of all UK industrial cluster CO₂ emissions – up to 27 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions a year by 2035.  It anticipates creating and supporting an average of 25,000 jobs over 2023 to 2050, with approximately 41,000 jobs at the project’s peak in 2026," BP said.

NZT Power expects to submit a bid in January 2022 for selection as part of phase-2 of the UK Government’s Carbon Capture, Usage and Storage (CCUS) cluster sequencing process.  In October, the Northern Endurance Partnership-led East Coast Cluster was named as a Track-1 cluster in the first phase of the sequencing process.