The Padeswood project is designed to capture around 800,000 t/y of CO₂ emissions (about 95% of emissions from the kiln) from cement production at Heidelberg Materials’ plant. The compressed CO₂ produced is to be transported via pipeline for permanent storage in depleted gas fields below Liverpool Bay, as part of the HyNet North West cluster.

Project execution follows Heidelberg’s final investment decision (FID) in September 2025, under Track 1 of the UK government’s carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) cluster sequencing programme. As the UK’s first full-scale CCS project in the cement sector, the new facility is scheduled to be operational in 2029.

Following award of the front-end engineering design (FEED) study in 2024, MHI and Worley have embarked on the provision of engineering and procurement under MHI’s proprietary Advanced KM CDR Process for CO₂ capture, together with associated plant, including compression.

Construction will support up to 500 jobs during the construction phase, with 50 new permanent jobs at the plant.

The plant will produce ‘evoZero’, what is claimed to be the world’s first net zero cement. ‘This is a major milestone in our plans to build the UK’s first carbon capture facility at a cement works, and will help the UK reach its decarbonisation aims,’ said Simon Willis, CEO of Heidelberg Materials UK.

Showing the scale of the problem, the UK cement sector produced 5.5–7mn t/y of CO₂ in 2020–2023 – about 1.5% of national emissions, according to UK government figures. Cement production is recognised to be one of the most carbon-intensive industrial processes. Furthermore, these emissions can’t be significantly reduced by switching to renewable energy.

While the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) support some CCS deployment, environmentalists have raised concerns that use of CCS will prolong fossil fuel use and delay development of more sustainable solutions.

Nevertheless, UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer affirmed funding of the Hynet and East Coast Cluster CCS projects in 2024, with the ambitious aim of capturing 20–30mn t/y of CO₂ by 2030, rising to 50mn t/y by 2050.

Heidelberg Materials already operates a carbon capture plant at its site in Brevik, Norway, which opened earlier this year under the Norwegian government’s Longship programme. The plant is understood to capture about 50% of cement plant emissions currently.

Question mark hangs over future of Acorn CCS project
In other news, UK developer Storegga has put its 30% stake in the Acorn CCS facility up for sale, raising questions about the future of the project. Acorn is one of two Track 2 projects approved for development by the UK government in 2025, alongside Viking (Humberside).

Acorn is a joint venture currently involving Storegga, Shell UK, Harbour Energy and North Sea Midstream Partners, which together with National Gas Transmission’s SCO₂T Connect project could provisionally provide CO₂ transport and storage infrastructure to enable decarbonisation of the Scottish cluster – a collection of power and hydrogen businesses in the central belt and north-east of Scotland.

Based in Aberdeenshire, the Acorn project aims to capture CO₂ emissions then move them to permanent storage in the Acorn field below the North Sea. But compounding the loss of one of its backers, it also faces the recent loss of two key industrial sites – Grangemouth refinery and Mossmorran chemical works – both large CO₂ emitters. In addition, concerns have been raised previously about the porosity of the sandstone reservoir and of potential fractures that might harm its integrity.

The BBC reports that other stakeholders insist that Storegga’s decision ‘should not be interpreted as a sign of wider problems’. However, the news comes as the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) launches a fresh round of licence applications, offering 14 new locations in Scottish and English waters including storage capacity for 2 Gt of CO₂.

BP scraps plans for Teesside hydrogen plant
In unrelated news, BP has pulled out of the H2Teesside hydrogen project due to a conflict over land with a planned data centre.

The facility was planned to be one of the largest blue hydrogen production facilities in the UK, targeted at capacity of 1.2 GW of hydrogen, including a distribution pipeline, air separation, CO₂ capture and compression facilities, and connection to the Northern Endurance Partnership infrastructure (East Coast Cluster).

In a letter to the UK Secretary of State, BP said the decision ‘has not been taken lightly’.

It continued: ‘While we maintain that a solution which enabled co-existence of both H2T and the proposed data centre on the Teesworks estate could have been identified, we note that the latter has the support of the Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, who would have primary consent for the data centre development to proceed.’

BP claims that the two proposals are ‘incompatible on the same piece of land’. Furthermore, ‘the hydrogen situation in Teesside has deteriorated’.