Leading energy companies form new North Sea carbon emissions partnership

BP, Eni, Equinor, National Grid, Shell and Total have formed a new partnership – the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP) – to develop offshore CO₂ transport and storage infrastructure in the UK North Sea, with BP as operator. The infrastructure will serve the proposed Net Zero Teesside (NZT) and Zero Carbon Humber (ZCH) projects that aim to establish decarbonised industrial clusters in Teesside and Humberside.

NZT and ZCH are at-scale decarbonisation projects that are expected to kick-start decarbonisation of industry and power in two of the UK’s largest industrial clusters. Both projects aim to be commissioned by 2026 with realistic pathways to achieve net zero as early as 2030 through a combination of carbon capture, hydrogen and fuel-switching. If successful, NEP linked to NZT and ZCH will allow decarbonisation of nearly 50% of the UK’s industrial emissions.

NEP has submitted a bid for funding through Phase 2 of the UK government’s Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge, aiming to accelerate the development of an offshore pipeline network to transport captured CO₂ emissions from both NZT and ZCH to offshore geological storage beneath the UK North Sea.

The £170mn Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge is part of the £4.7bn Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund set up by the UK government to address the biggest industrial and societal challenges using research and development based in the UK. NEP’s application for funding is an important step towards enabling the development of integrated offshore carbon storage for NZT and ZCH in the UK southern North Sea.

The application follows the approval by the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA) of the addition of BP and Equinor alongside National Grid to the Endurance carbon storage licence. This affirms the strategic importance of the Endurance reservoir as the most mature large-scale saline aquifer for CO₂ storage in the offshore UK Continental Shelf, that can enable industrial decarbonisation from both clusters.

Northern Endurance Partnership
Source: NEP