Saline Aquifer Drilling Project with National Grid
We co-invested £2m in a National Grid project which carried out the UK’s first drilling assessment of a saline formation site for the storage of CO2.
About the project
- £2m investment in the UK’s first drilling assessment of a saline formation site
- Site was 70km off the Yorkshire coast.
- Involved drilling a well in the seabed to gather data
We co-invested £2m in a National Grid project which has carried out the UK’s first drilling assessment of a saline formation site for the storage of CO2, at a site 70km off the Yorkshire coast.
The multi million pound project represented a major step forward in the creation of a CCS industry in the UK for multiple power stations and industrial sites, to store their CO2 rather than release into the atmosphere.
National Grid led the drilling programme at the identified saline formation, a layer of porous sandstone rock over 1km below the seabed. The operation, using standard oil and gas drilling activities, involved drilling a well in the seabed to gather data to confirm that CO2 can be safely and permanently stored at the site, while also confirming the scale and economics of the store.
The results of the drilling confirmed the previous assessment that the store is very large and capable of storing carbon dioxide from several sources over a number of decades. The site was close to the shore and, importantly, near to two major clusters of CO2 emitters in the Humberside and Teeside region making it an ideal storage location.
