UK-based Liverpool Bay CCS (LBCCS) has signed a lease with The Crown Estate, securing the seabed rights needed to develop offshore carbon dioxide (CO2) transport and storage infrastructure beneath Liverpool Bay.
LBCCS provides the transport and storage infrastructure that underpins the HyNet Industrial decarbonisation cluster.
HyNet is one of the UK’s first government-backed carbon capture clusters and is intended to decarbonise heavy industry across North West England and North Wales.
The Crown Estate owns or manages much of the seabed around England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, so companies need permission (through a lease) to build or operate offshore infrastructure there.
Through the lease, LCCS – part of Eni CCUS Holding group – can access the seabed and utilise unused oil and gas infrastructure to transport and store offshore CO2 from industries within the cluster.
“Repurposing our existing infrastructure helps to speed up the process by which we can tackle CO2 emissions from industry in the North West of England and North Wales,” said Stefano Rovelli, Managing Director for LBCCS.
The project will reuse more than 75 miles of existing pipelines, three offshore structures, and an onshore treatment plant. It will also use 21 miles of new pipeline connecting industrial facilities across the region to the Liverpool Bay transport and storage network.
The HyNet Project Map ©HyNet
The project is expected to become one of the UK’s first commercial-scale offshore carbon transport and storage networks.
During the first phase, CO2 captured from cement, low-carbon hydrogen and energy-from-waste facilities will be transported and stored in depleted offshore gas reservoirs beneath Liverpool Bay.
Depleted gas reservoirs are considered suitable because they have contained hydrocarbons underground for millions of years and have well-understood geological characteristics.
For cement, construction aggregates firm Heidelberg Materials UK aims to up to 800,000 tonnes of CO2 a year from its existing cement facility in north Wales.
“Liverpool Bay shows how repurposing existing infrastructure for CCUS can accelerate the decarbonisation of hard-to-abate industries such as cement and energy-from-waste,” said Olivia Powis, CEO of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association.
Phase 1 of LBCCS is expected to store 109 million tonnes of CO2 over its operational life, with an initial storage capacity of 4.5 million tonnes per annum. It may be expanded to 10 million tonnes per annum after 2030.
First CO2 injection is expected in 2028, in line with the planned start-up of industrial emitters connected to the HyNet cluster.
