Essar Oil UK has announced plans to build a £360m carbon capture plant at its Stanlow refinery in Ellesmere Port.
The company said the move is part of its drive to become a "leading low carbon refinery" by 2030.
Kent plc has been awarded a pre-FEED engineering contract to develop the facility that will take the CO2 emitted from one of Europe’s largest full-Residue Fluidised Catalytic Cracking units, located at the Stanlow refinery.
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Construction is expected to start during the first quarter of 2025.
The gas will be permanently sequestered into depleted gas fields under the sea in Liverpool Bay, as part of the HyNet cluster infrastructure in the North West of England.
Essar Oil UK said that once complete in 2027, the plant will eliminate an estimated 810,000 tons of CO2 per year – the equivalent of taking 400,000 cars off the road, reducing nearly 40% of all Stanlow emissions.
Deepak Maheshwari, CEO of Essar Oil UK, said: "This new carbon capture plant is the single biggest initiative to decarbonise our processes and a core element to our hugely ambitious decarbonisation strategy.
"Our ambition is to become a leading low carbon refinery. This is a massive undertaking, but it is a journey we are fully committed to.
"Not only is it the right environmental thing to do, it will future proof the critical Stanlow refinery for the long term, protecting jobs and industry, while also placing Stanlow at the very centre of the UK’s energy transition."
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