Humber Zero supports the UK government’s target for achieving net zero in the coming decades, through its 10-point plan for a green industrial revolution and the recently published UK Hydrogen strategy. Heavy industry is the lifeblood of the Humber economy, and the region produces many of the everyday products we take for granted in the UK, from construction materials to chemicals, food to fuel. Humber Zero will help industry to decarbonise and support the UK in meeting its commitments to net zero, whilst creating over 100 permanent jobs and sustaining around 20,000 industrial jobs in the region.
The Humber Zero project focuses on two distinct areas:
- Post-combustion – emissions which are normally released to the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas will be captured, transported and stored in depleted gas fields deep beneath the sea bed off the east coast of the UK.
- Pre-combustion – this will initially involve CCUS-enabled hydrogen production, whereby natural gas is split to produce hydrogen, and most process emissions are captured with technology. The hydrogen produced then powers electricity generation for the National Grid.
The project brings together Phillips 66 Ltd, owners and operators of one of the most modern refineries in the UK, VPI Immingham, which owns and operates one of the UK’s most efficient gas-fired power stations, and energy trader Vitol to capture up to 8 million MT of carbon annually by 2030. It will sequester its first CO2 offtake in the mid-2020s and by 2030 deliver a significant proportion of the government’s national target. Humber Zero is part of the Humber Industrial Cluster, a consortium of the region’s largest emitters of carbon, plus local authorities and other key stakeholders. It was set up in January 2021 following a plan set out by UK Research and Innovation [UKRI] in 2019 for decarbonising areas with high concentrations of heavy industry. The project is currently in the define phase (FEED or FEL-2) and is expected to transition to the EPC phase in mid to late 2023.