Four more industry players sign up for BP’s Teesside hydrogen plans

BP has signed MoUs with four customers interested in using hydrogen produced at its proposed production facility in Teesside, UK.

CF Fertilisers, Mitsubishi Chemical, Sembcorp Energy and Alfanar have signed the MoUs to use hydrogen from BP’s H2Teesside facility. BP announced plans for the 1 GW “blue” hydrogen facility in March. Blue hydrogen is produced by steam reforming natural gas. BP plans to transport the resulting CO2 offshore for storage through the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP). The project will be developed in 500 MW stages, with the first coming online by 2027.

CF Fertilisers would use hydrogen to replace fuel used for its Billingham plant and tie into NEP pipeline infrastructure to store process emissions. Mitsubishi Chemicals will use hydrogen at its methyl methacrylate production plant in Teesside that was previously ‎operated by Lucite International.‎ Sembcorp Energy will use hydrogen in its combined heat and power plants. Alfanar is interested in scoping hydrogen for use as a feedstock in a waste-to-aviation fuel plant that it has proposed to build in Teesside. The agreements build on the MoU BP signed in March to scope the supply of hydrogen to Venator, which makes titanium dioxide pigments and performance additives at a plant in Teesside.

BP has said it expects to make a final investment decision on the H2Teesside facility in early 2024. If it commits to the plans outlined in March, the facility’s 1 GW/y of hydrogen output would meet 20% of the UK’s hydrogen targets. By 2030, the UK Government wants to support the development of four industrial CCUS clusters, develop 5 GW of hydrogen production capacity, and capture 10m t/y of CO2.

Louise Jacobsen Plutt, BP’s Senior Vice President of Hydrogen and CCUS, said the MoUs demonstrate the diverse range of companies and industries that can benefit from ‎clean hydrogen.

“Teesside has all the attributes of a world-class clean hydrogen hub – the right ‎natural resources, concentrated demand, potential for hydrogen storage and pipelines, ample access ‎to CCUS and the right skills base,” she said.