After Shell refusal, UK says no change in offshore policy
The UK energy minister said from his Twitter account on October 12 that there was no change in the policy on new oil and gas fields, roughly a week after the government rejected a gas development plan from Anglo-Dutch major Shell.
Greg Hand, UK minister of state for energy, clean growth and climate change, said from his official social media account he had a “useful meeting” with the UK division of Shell.
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The meeting followed an October 6 decision by the UK Offshore Petroleum Regulator for Environment and Decommissions to reject plans submitted by Shell to develop the Jackdaw natural gas field in the UK sector of the North Sea after reviewing its environmental statement.
According to the Reuters news service, which relied on industry sources close to the decision, the regulator provided no grounds for the dismissal.
Hand said there was “no change” in the government policy on new field developments. He added that it was “good to hear” about Shell’s plans to boost the build up of carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), as well as hydrogen.
Project Cavendish, a joint venture between Arup, VPI, National Grid Ventures, Shell, SSE Thermal and Uniper, aims to bring its blue hydrogen plant online in 2027. It will be situated on the Isle of Grain in the Thames Estuary, where an LNG import terminal is already located.
Under the terms of a memorandum of understanding, CO2 resulting from the blue hydrogen production process would be captured and delivered by ship to Peterhead in Scotland, where it would be transferred to the Acorn CCS project, a joint venture between Storegga, Shell and Harbour Energy.
The environmental statement for Jackdaw was submitted early in 2021. Shell in a statement on the submission said the Acorn project was one element of the broader development.
“Methane from the integrated value stream,” including Jackdaw, Shell said, could be repurposed to blue hydrogen.