Hull is to provide the platform for British businesses to win work on one of the region’s largest decarbonisation projects.
The city is to host the first supplier event since Drax announced Worley as its engineering, procurement and construction partner on its huge bioenergy with carbon capture and storage plans.
The UK power giant will become the western anchor of the huge project to clean up the Humber industrial cluster, a start point for emission collection on a huge dual pipeline project involving hydrogen supply from Saltend and depleted oil and gas reservoirs under the North Sea.
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Hundreds of millions of pounds of contracts have been flagged up on the Drax site alone, with further details to be presented at an event at the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel next month.
Graham Backhouse, Drax’s commercial director for the BECCS project, said: “We want to put British businesses at the heart of our plans to deliver BECCS, allowing them to benefit from hundreds of millions of pounds worth of new contracts.
“Negative emissions technologies like BECCS will play a vital role in enabling the UK to reach its net zero goals, as well as creating exciting opportunities for Britain to lead the world in a vital technology, creating a new sector of the economy, as well as export opportunities.
“Our programme of events is a great opportunity for businesses to get involved and learn more about the project – we encourage companies of all sizes across the region to come along and find out more about how they might benefit from the contracts available.”
A virtual event was held in September last year, prior to Worley’s selection. Then 400 businesses attended online. It is being delivered by energy sector business development organisation NOF, and the West & North Yorkshire and Hull & Humber Chambers of Commerce.
Bradley Andrews, president at Worley, said: “We’re supporting the investment and scale up of the UK supply chain to maximise local business participation working alongside Drax, NOF and Worley’s e-procurement partner, Requis.
“Requis provides a digitally enabled platform where qualified suppliers can register their materials and services in line with what’s required for the project scope, driving opportunity for the UK supply market.”
Drax has previously said that it aims to source 80 per cent of construction materials and services from British firms and build a robust UK supply chain for BECCS, ahead of construction getting underway as soon as 2024, with the creation of around 10,000 jobs.
Joanne Leng MBE, chief executive at NOF, said: “NOF has now delivered a significant number of supplier engagement activities on behalf of major clients in the energy industry.
“We are now working on the BECCS project with Drax and Worley who have both demonstrated a strong commitment to working with the local and wider UK supply chain and through NOF’s support they aim to ensure that as much UK content as possible is included in this project. The domestic supply chain is innovative, capable and competitive, it is world class so let’s utilise this experience and expertise on the project.”
The event takes place on Tuesday, May 17, from 10am. To register, click here.
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