Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP), the UK’s first CO2 transportation and storage network, has reached a major milestone with the launch of its offshore construction campaign at PD Ports’ Port of Hartlepool.
The campaign is being delivered in partnership with Saipem, a leading company in the engineering and construction of major projects for the energy and infrastructure sectors.
The arrival of linepipe joints at the Saipem Logistics facility signals the start of a major construction programme that will create the infrastructure needed to transport captured carbon emissions from industry across Teesside and the Humber for safe and permanent storage beneath the North Sea.
The pipes will be used by Saipem to construct a 149 km long 28 in. offshore pipeline, with associated landfall, forming a vital part of the network that will carry CO2 from local industrial facilities to offshore storage sites deep beneath the seabed. The campaign represents a historic step forward for the UK’s carbon capture and storage (CCS) industry and the development of one of the country’s biggest decarbonisation projects.
The benefits of the project are already being felt across Hartlepool and the wider Tees Valley. More than 60% of the linepipe joints have been manufactured at the Liberty Steel pipe mill in Hartlepool, now operated by Corinth Pipeworks, supporting around 150 skilled jobs and creating a further 35 roles, including apprenticeship opportunities.
The fact that the pipes have been produced locally demonstrates how NEP is driving economic activity across the region, with businesses and workers benefiting from the project's supply chain long before operations begin.
NEP is playing a key role in the reindustrialisation of the North East and Humber regions. Together with Net Zero Teesside Power, the project is expected to support around 3000 jobs and has already awarded more than £2 billion of contracts to over 260 UK-based companies, ensuring the economic benefits of the energy transition are felt across the country.
The offshore construction campaign marks another big step forward for a project that is already around one-third complete, with significant onshore construction activity well underway.
PD Ports and Saipem are central to the successful delivery of the offshore construction campaign, with Port of Hartlepool serving as a strategic hub for the handling and mobilisation of materials that will help establish the UK’s first carbon dioxide transportation and storage network.
PD Ports will be managing a total project cargo made up of around 12 000 individual concrete-coated linepipe joints weighing approximately 170 000 t in total. Between 40 and 60 PD Ports colleagues will be directly involved in delivery of the NEP contract, with opportunities across engineering, logistics, procurement and communications. It also creates an exceptional opportunity for the company’s apprentices to gain hands-on experience on a major offshore project.
Furthermore, more than £1 million has already been invested in pipe handling equipment at the Port of Hartlepool to strengthen PD Ports’ pipe handling capabilities, both for the project and for its wider customer base.
Once operational, the Northern Endurance Partnership network is expected to be capable of transporting and storing up to 23 million tpy of CO2. If fully realised, that would be equivalent to around 20% of the UK's annual CO2 emissions, making NEP a necessary piece of infrastructure in the country's journey towards net zero.