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The North East of England Process Industry Cluster’s (NEPIC) CEO, Philip Aldridge has given his opinion on the latest green economy announcements released by the UK Government on 30 March 2023.

“The announcement provided positive news for Teesside, giving further support for the bp Net Zero Power and H2 Teesside projects, and the BOC Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project.

“There were however several projects that were unsuccessful in the Cluster sequencing Phase-2: Track-1 project negotiation list, putting these projects at risk.

“We hoped to see greater support for these important projects, which would enable the region to fully realise its decarbonisation ambitions. Expectations were raised across Teesside but with this announcement many projects now hang in the balance.

“There is now uncertainty of how access to the new CCS pipeline can be gained for both existing and new projects such as the Alfanar sustainable aviation fuel project on North Tees.”

NEPIC believes Teesside has huge potential to become a world leader in CCS if all parties can come together to support inward investment, and they have been actively working to push forward the decarbonisation agenda for the region.

On 28 March 2023 working alongside strategic partners, NEPIC was involved with the launch of the Tees Valley Cluster Plan which aims to meet the Net Zero 2040 objective and are hosting their Clean Growth Conference on 20 June 2023 which allows industry and stakeholders to commune and discuss their decarbonisation challenges and opportunities.

Philip continued: “Whilst we are pleased for those who have successfully moved forward to the next stage, if we are to attract inward investment into the region to make use of the planned CO2 collection system on Teesside, more needs to be done.”

“As a cluster, we encourage dialogue aimed at facilitating advancement and will be initiating discussions to drive progress.”