North east Scotland-based IKM Testing UK has been appointed to deliver pipeline pre-commissioning services for the UK’s first offshore carbon capture and storage (CCS) project, being developed on England’s east coast.
Developed some 75 kilometers east of Flamborough Head, the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP) project will comprise an onshore CO2 gathering network, compression facilities and a 145-kilometer offshore pipeline connected to subsea injection facilities in the Endurance saline aquifer located around 1,000 meters below the North Sea seabed.
Under its contract, IKM will deliver specialist pipeline pre-commissioning services including flooding, cleaning, gauging and hydrotesting, said to be essential to verifying pipeline integrity and ensuring systems are safe, compliant and fully operational ahead of CO2 injection.
The UK firm will be working with Saipem as the main contractor.
“Pre-commissioning is a critical stage in the delivery of any major pipeline system, particularly for CO2 infrastructure where safety and integrity are paramount. Our role is to ensure these assets are fully tested, verified and ready for service before operations begin,” said Barry Summers , Regional Director at IKM Testing UK.
“Securing this contract reflects the depth of engineering expertise we have here in Aberdeen and the growing role North east Scotland continues to play in delivering large-scale energy transition projects across the UK.”
The NEP infrastructure will initially serve the Teesside-based East Coast Cluster (ECC) carbon capture projects – NZT Power, H2Teesside and Teesside Hydrogen CO2 Capture – that were selected for first connection to NEP by DESNZ in March 2023 as part of the UK’s cluster sequencing process for carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS).
Storage at the site is expected to start in 2028, making it the first operational CCS project in the UK. The initial phase is expected to see up to 100 million tons of CO2 stored in the Endurance aquifer over a 25-year period.