UK Acorn CCS picks FEED contractor

The partners in the Acorn carbon capture and storage (CCS) project at St Fergus in Scotland have picked industrial specialists Carbon Clean to carry out the front end engineering design (FEED), they said July 15. The project could remove at least 5mn metric tons/yr of CO₂ from offshore gas deliveries and from onshore industrial sites by 2030 for injection in the depleted Goldeneye field.

Owned by Storegga subsidiary Pale Blue Dot, the Anglo-Dutch major Shell and privately held Harbour Energy, Acorn is in the detailed engineering and design phase of the project and it hopes to have the CO₂ capture facility operational by the mid-2020s. The project is due to be one of the first industrial-scale carbon capture projects in the UK.

Advertisement: The National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited (NGC) NGC’s HSSE strategy is reflective and supportive of the organisational vision to become a leader in the global energy business. ngc.co.tt

The CCS network created through Acorn has the potential to be one of the largest operating CCS projects in the world, transporting and storing captured CO₂ from emitters across the UK and mainland Europe.

Storegga CEO Nick Cooper said it was "excellent working with a group as innovative as Carbon Clean. Like us, they started as a small entrepreneurial business and have used UK Innovation Funds to create organisations that are now ready to significantly contribute to the UK energy transition."

Carbon Clean CEO Aniruddha Sharma said: "Carbon Clean has a proven track record of delivering scalable, cost-effective carbon capture solutions; I am delighted to announce our second UK-based project of 2021... We look forward to getting underway with the FEED stage and working with the other consortium partners to implement novel carbon capture and storage solutions."

Scotland-based engineering firm Wood, which has been working at the StFergus terminal for many years, will work with Carbon Clean.

The government said it has awarded Pale Blue Dot and Carbon Clean £11mn ($15.2mn) to deploy "critically important carbon capture and hydrogen infrastructure that will help British industries to decarbonise in a way that's competitive and projects jobs."