The news of £4billion of contracts being sealed at bp's flagship project at Teesworks has been welcomed by business leaders and MPs across the region and the rest of the UK.

NZT Power aims to be the world’s first gas-fired power station with carbon capture and storage capability and will help drive Teesside’s aim to become the UK’s first decarbonised industrial cluster as early as 2030.

Captured CO2 will be transported by the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP) by pipeline to a geological storage site under the North Sea, where it will be permanently and safely stored.

The contract winners:

Onshore Power, Capture and Compression – Technip Energies and GE Vernova consortium including Balfour Beatty as the construction partner and Shell as the technology licensor

Onshore CO2 gathering system and gas connection – Costain

Linepipe – Onshore and Offshore – Marubeni-Itochu Tubulars Europe Plc with Liberty Steel Hartlepool, Corinth Pipeworks and Eisenbau Kramer GmbH as the nominated pipe-mills

Offshore Pipeline, Landfalls, Onshore Outlet Facilities and Water Outfall – Saipem

Offshore Subsea Injection System – TechnipFMC

Power and Communications Cable – Alcatel Submarine Networks

Offshore Systems Engineering – Genesis

Integrated Project Management Team – Wood


How the full story was broken


Jeffrey Kabel, LIBERTY Steel's Chief Transformation Officer: “LIBERTY Pipes Hartlepool is extremely proud to have been selected to support this flagship project - a landmark first of hopefully one of many similar projects in the UK, and internationally, that the business hopes to be involved in.”

Luana Duffé, Executive Vice President, TechnipFMC: “We are proud to be involved in this milestone development. This project leverages TechnipFMC’s strong presence across the UK and demonstrates how our core competencies are essential to the energy transition.”

Arnaud Pieton, CEO, Technip Energies: “Together, we are committed to long-term investment in the UK and to support this flagship project, as it marks a huge step for the UK government’s commitment to decarbonising the country’s power system by 2035.”

Helen Coleman, Managing Director, Genesis: “This award confirms our market leading position in CO2 transport and storage services, where deep technical capabilities are essential to understanding the criticalities of projects and developing suitable de-risking strategies."

Alain Biston, CEO, ASN: This project is the opportunity for ASN, leveraging on subsea telecom and power conversion technologies manufactured in the UK to contribute to the fight against global warming’.

Alessandro Puliti, Chief Executive Officer, Saipem: “Saipem is fully committed to providing the best competencies and its flagship vessel Castorone to support NEP and NZTP partnerships and contribute to the realization of the first zero-carbon industrial hub in the North-East of England and the achievement of the UK’s Net Zero targets.”

Alex Vaughan, CEO, Costain: “This is an enormously important step forward for the UK in safeguarding our planet and unlocking sustainable economic growth, and we are proud that Costain has been selected to play an integral part in progressing the energy transition and decarbonisation agenda"

Julie Rae, Vice President, Wood: “These programmes provide great opportunities for the next generation of engineers and we are proud to be part of the solution.”

The partners

Louise Kingham, UK head of country and senior vice president, Europe, bp: “These moments bring the projects closer to the goal of supporting the UK government’s commitment to fully decarbonise the power system in the UK by 2035 and to help enable greater deployment of renewable power by providing flexible, dispatchable low-carbon electricity”.

The Northern Echo: Louise Kingham at a Northern Echo eventLouise Kingham at a Northern Echo event (Image: Newsquest)

Grete Tveit, Senior Vice President, Equinor: “It marks another major stepping stone on our route towards a final investment decision and ultimately towards a net zero East Coast Cluster.”

Etienne Anglès d’Auriac, CCS Vice-President, TotalEnergies: “ TotalEnergies is proud to be part of a frontrunner CCS project in the UK to sustain the decarbonisation of an entire industrial region, a prerequisite for many players to remain competitive and sustainable, in the current fight against climate change.”


Three key people in this remarkable plan


The MPs

Simon Clarke, Conservative MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland: “This landmark announcement is not just a triumph for Net Zero Teesside Power and the Northern Endurance Partnership, but a monumental victory, all part of our positive plan for Teesside. I have supported carbon capture since I was first elected and I’m delighted to fully support these efforts to achieve final investment decisions by September 2024.”

The Northern Echo: Andy McDonaldAndy McDonald

Andy McDonald, Labour MP for Middlesbrough: “Huge congratulations to Net Zero Teesside Power and the Northern Endurance Partnership for having reached this major milestone of concluding the arduous tendering and procurement processes and selecting the contractors for this vitally important project. As well as being such an important contribution to the UK’s net zero ambitions, this is a huge economic opportunity for the UK and locally based supply chains. This is such an important step in bringing this massively important project to fruition and a real cause for optimism.”

Jacob Young, Conservative MP for Redcar: “This £4bn investment demonstrates the confidence in our workforce, our businesses, and our collective ability to lead the charge in the UK’s ambition to achieve net zero emissions by 2050. The creation of thousands of construction and operational jobs is a testament to the project’s potential to transform our local economy.”

 

The Northern Echo: The bp site at TeesworksThe bp site at Teesworks (Image: TVCA)

 

The supporters

James Mackey, Managing Director, Climate Investment (CI): "As a specialised decarbonisation investor, and an early investor in NZT, Climate Investment believes that CCUS hubs like NZT are a necessary and critical solution for carbon abatement in energy and industry.”

Dr V Bryony Livesey, ISCF Director – Industrial Decarbonisation, UKRI: “The Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge, delivered through UK Research and Innovation, has supported the initial stages of development of this important project and is delighted to see it progressing towards construction and operation.”

The Northern Echo: Joanne LengJoanne Leng

Joanne Leng MBE, Chief Executive, NOF: “The projects could create and support up to 3,000 jobs during construction and NOF is proud to have worked closely with NZT Power on early regional supplier engagement activities and is looking forward to continuing to support this work as the projects move towards final investment decision in September this year”.

Joanne Fryett, Interim CEO, NEPIC: “ We are proud of the support we have provided to date, and as the projects move towards FID in September this year we look forward to continuing to facilitate the regional supply chain engagement which is already underway”.