Spirit Energy announced plans to support the net-zero transition and convert its depleted South Morecambe, North Morecambe gas fields, and Barrow Terminals into a carbon storage cluster. It will have the capacity to store up to one gigaton of CO2 from carbon-intensive industries in the North West, South Wales, and the Solent regions.
It is set to be one of the biggest carbon storage and hydrogen production clusters in the UK. The CO2 storage project is subject to a license by the North Sea Transition Authority and other regulatory approvals.
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“Our project will introduce cost-effective decarbonization to businesses all over the UK, with a multi-billion-pound facility which means that a connection to a CO2 export pipeline is no longer necessary to access carbon storage. Our new cluster will provide a solution for the UK’s industrial heartlands to reduce their carbon emissions…,” commented Neil McCulloch, CEO of Spirit Energy on the carbon storage initiative.
Spirit Energy is an energy company with a portfolio of predominantly natural gas (96%) with operations in the UK and Europe. It plans to work on carbon storage development simultaneously with continuing to maximize the use of the gas fields until they are fully depleted.
It also has 50 years of knowledge and data from operating the South Morecambe and North Morecambe fields. The gas production in the facility is predicted to cease in the second half of the decade.
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Spirit Energy plans to harness the skills of more than 300 workers currently based at the site as the North and South Morecambe gas fields are coming to the end of their productive life. According to the company, the site will provide continued job security with a new multi-billion-pound facility.
An increasing number of fossil fuels development companies are entering the carbon management sector and moving towards decarbonizing their operations. However, a true net zero economy cannot be achieved until it moves entirely towards clean alternative energy sources. Many oil and gas companies are purely using greenwashing tactics to avoid taking full responsibility for their amounting number of emissions and they sure don’t mind continuing to release greenhouse gases.
