BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 24. Eni has announced the financial close of the Liverpool Bay Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project, following an agreement with the UK Government’s Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), Trend reports.
Eni, as the operator of the CO2 transport and storage system (T&S) for the HyNet industrial Cluster, will now proceed to the construction phase.
The project, which is expected to create around 2,000 jobs during construction, will support the UK’s industrial competitiveness by safeguarding existing jobs and creating new opportunities. A significant portion of the project’s supply chain contracts will be spent locally.
The UK Government's £21.7 billion funding, allocated over 25 years, is aimed at developing the country's first two CCS clusters. This funding underscores the UK’s commitment to decarbonisation and its goal to lead the energy transition globally.
The Liverpool Bay CCS project will transport CO2 from capture plants in the North West of England and North Wales to safe, permanent storage in Eni’s depleted natural gas reservoirs in Liverpool Bay. The project includes the repurposing of offshore platforms, as well as the construction of 149 km of pipelines, with an additional 35 km of new pipelines connecting industrial emitters to the CCS network.
HyNet, one of the world’s most advanced CCS clusters, aims to reduce emissions across a range of industries. Eni’s CO2 T&S system has an initial storage capacity of 4.5 million tons of CO2 per year, with plans to increase this to 10 million tons by the 2030s. The project is set to start construction this year, with a planned start-up in 2028.
Eni views CCS as a key component of its decarbonisation strategy and has global initiatives in the sector, with a total storage capacity of approximately 3 billion tons.