(Editors at Energy Analytics Institute, 8.Jan.2025) — The Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissioning, acting on behalf of the UK Secretary of State, agreed in Oct. 2024 to the grant of consent for the Northern Endurance Partnership Environmental Statement. This decision opened the door for the award of the first ever UK carbon storage permit by the North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) in Dec. 2024, followed by the NEP and shareholders, Equinor, bp and TotalEnergies announcing financial close on the UK’s first carbon capture and storage (CCS) project.
The Environmental Statement (ES), delivered by global energy consultancy Xodus Group over the course of 2 years, is the first ES for a CCS project in the UK to have reached this stage, Xodus announced 8 Jan. 2025 in an official statement.
NEP is a project of major importance to the UK’s net zero ambitions. The ES was a novel undertaking for Xodus, covering offshore CO2 transportation and storage scopes for onshore Teesside-based carbon capture projects.
“The evidence is clear; achieving net zero will be virtually impossible without the rapid scale up of CCS. Research from Xodus forecasts that the volume of CO2 being injected into the North Sea by 2050 will be equivalent to the natural gas currently being extracted from the basin, and the Northern Endurance Partnership will be a vital cog in that machine,” Xodus CEO Steve Swindell said in the statement.
Contained in the ES is an assessment of the offshore elements of NEP, including the installation of 145km of pipeline, and the drilling and installation of wells that will enable injection of CO2 into the Endurance reservoir.
The work was delivered by an integrated team across bp and Xodus, and drew on different disciplines from across Xodus, including Xodus’ Geohazards division in the US which supported with the analysis of geophysical data.
NEP is the CO2 transportation and storage provider for the East Coast Cluster (ECC).
The NEP infrastructure will initially serve the Teesside-based East Coast Cluster carbon capture projects – NZT Power, H2Teesside and Teesside Hydrogen CO2 Capture – that were selected for first connection to NEP by DESNZ in Mar. 2023 as part of the UK’s cluster sequencing process for carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS).
NEP expects to commence construction from the middle of 2025 with start-up expected in 2028. The infrastructure will transport and permanently store up to an initial 4 million tonnes of CO2 per year.
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By Editors at Energy Analytics Institute. © 2025 Energy Analytics Institute (EAI). All Rights Reserved.
