New £360m plant will secure Ellesmere Port refinery's future and safeguard jobs
Essar says building the carbon capture plant is part of its plans to become a 'leading low carbon refinery' by 2030
The Essar Stanlow Refinery in Ellesmere Port(Image: Essar Oil (UK))
A new £360 million carbon capture plant will be built at Stanlow Refinery as part of its drive to become a leading low-carbon refinery by 2030.
Essar confirmed the project, which makes up part of its more than £1 billion investment into a range of energy efficiency, fuel-switching, and carbon capture initiatives.
The investment is designed to decarbonise its production processes. It is hoped that this will bring the Cheshire site to the forefront of the UK's shift to low carbon energy.
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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.”
Essar has outlined five principles as part of its energy transition strategy:
- Running the core Stanlow refining processes as efficiently and safely as possible.
- Decarbonising Stanlow’s operations.
- Building a hydrogen future through the launch of Vertex Hydrogen (“Vertex”) and as a key part of the HyNet consortium.
- Developing green fuels (including Sustainable Aviation Fuels).
- Stablishing the UK’s largest biofuels storage facility through Stanlow Terminals Limited.
It is hoped that once the new plant is completed in 2027, it will eliminate an estimated 0.81 million tons of CO2 every year. This is the equivalent of taking 400,000 cars off the road. This will mean losing nearly 40% of all emissions coming from Stanlow.
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