BP (BP +0.02%) is at the center of a new alliance to develop offshore carbon dioxide transportation and storage facilities in the the portion of the North Sea adjoining the company's native England.
The company announced Monday it is combining with several fellow energy multinationals, namely Royal Dutch Shell, Eni, Total, Equinor, and National Grid, to form the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP). BP will lead the NEP, which is to own and operate the project.
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The initiative will support a pair of onshore facilities, Net Zero Tesside and Zero Carbon Humber, that are intended to develop what BP describes as "decarbonized industrial clusters" on English territory. Those two locations are heavily industrialized.
To source capital for the project, NEP has applied for funding from a 170 million British pound ($220 million) UK government program called the Industrial Decarbonization Challenge.
BP quoted its vice president of carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS), Andy Lane, as saying, "The formation of the Northern Endurance Partnership is another significant milestone toward developing the offshore infrastructure that will be needed to safely transport and store carbon dioxide from CCUS projects along England's east coast."
In his view, the forming of NEP shows the "industry's willingness to come together and collaborate wherever possible to accelerate making CCUS a reality in the UK, helping to decarbonize the local economy and contributing to the UK's climate goals."
For nearly a decade, BP -- the initials of which originally stood for British Petroleum -- has made concentrated moves away from fossil fuels toward more sustainable forms of energy. Its participation in the NEP is the latest manifestation of this strategy.
