BP has signed agreements with four potential offtakers for H2 Teesside, its 1GW blue hydrogen plant.

The project aims to begin production in 2027, capturing and storing 2mn t/yr CO₂ via the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP)

It forms a key part of the Net Zero Teesside (NZT) cluster—one of the clusters that will likely receive funding from the UK’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) financing programme.

The offtakers are: CF Fertilisers, a producer of ammonia-based fertiliser ‎products; Mitsubishi Chemical Corporation, a manufacturer of chemical products; Sembcorp Energy UK, the operator of a combined heat and power plant; and Alfanar, a materials firm that would use the hydrogen as a feedstock.

BP has already signed memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with chemicals ‎manufacturer Venator and gas distributor Northern Gas Networks.‎

“Today’s ‎announcement demonstrates the diverse range of companies and industries that can benefit from ‎clean hydrogen,” says Louise Jacobsen Plutt, BP’s senior vice president of hydrogen and CCUS.

“These MoUs show how supply and demand can work together to accelerate the growth and delivery ‎of a hydrogen economy.”‎

Hydrogen and demand supply

Growing supply and demand at the same time has often been noted as a problem in the development of the hydrogen sector. The establishment of low-carbon clusters and provisional offtake agreements was cited as the best solution to this problem in a PE Live roundtable earlier this year.

To further develop the supply chain, BP is encouraging UK-based suppliers to register their interest at the Teesside supplier portal.

The NZT consortium—operator BP, Italy’s Eni, Norway’s Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies—aims to capture 10mn t CO₂/yr. The consortium, together with the UK’s National Grid, have formed the NEP, which will transport and store CO₂ under the North Sea.

The NEP will also serve the proposed Zero Carbon Humber (ZCH) project, which will establish a decarbonised industrial cluster in Humberside. NEP and its connection to NZT and ZCH will support decarbonisation of close to 50pc of the UK’s industrial cluster emissions, the operators say.  

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Author: Tom Young