Oil and gas giant BP has scrapped its HyGreen Teesside hydrogen project, following its recent decision to scale back investments in green energy and limit future hydrogen developments.
BP told H2 View that it is “no longer processing plans to develop HyGreen.”
HyGreen Teesside was expected to be one of the UK’s largest hydrogen production facilities, targeting 500MW of electrolyser capacity by 2030, with an initial 80MW phase slated to come online this year.
In June 2023, BP conducted a public consultation to gather feedback on the green hydrogen facility, before it submitted a detailed planning application to Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council a year later.
According to reports, BP’s planning application for HyGreen Teesside ultimately expired without approval.
The company explained its decision to H2 View: “We’ve been clear in our recent strategy reset announcement that we’re focused on high-graded projects in hydrogen and carbon capture, prioritising 5-7 projects for this decade.
“In the UK, our focus is on the significant projects in Teesside – NZT Power, NEP, and H2Teesside.”
Just last week, BP revealed it would increase its oil and gas investments by about 30% to $10bn a year while cutting planned renewables funding by over $5bn, adopting a “disciplined investment” in green energy.
BP had previously agreed to supply hydrogen from HyGreen to Northern Gas Networks (NGN) for its planned hydrogen heating trial in Redcar.
However, the UK government later cancelled the trial, citing a lack of “adequate low-carbon hydrogen to supply the Redcar Hydrogen Community.”
HyGreen had also been entered into the UK Government’s Hydrogen Allocation Round (HAR1) for subsidies, although it was not announced amongst the winners in December 2023.
BP and its project partners announced a final investment decision (FID) for two carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects in Teesside last December, but provided no financial update on the associated blue hydrogen project, H2Teesside.
Moving forward, BP has confirmed that its clean energy efforts in Teesside will primarily focus on these CCS and blue hydrogen initiatives.
bp has stopped 18 early-stage hydrogen projects as it focuses on high returns
October 2024
bp has revealed that it has stopped the development of 18 early-stage hydrogen projects as part of its focus on higher return projects.
In its Q3 results, where the oil and gas firm reported a 30% drop in profits to $2.3bn, CEO, Murray Auchincloss, told investors that bp had “stopped or paused” 24 potential projects – 18 of which were hydrogen developments.
“We have worked across all our businesses to review the projects in our hopper, including those from early concept selection through to pre-FID,” the CEO said.
“The result – we have stopped or paused 24 potential projects, allowing our teams to now focus on delivering the highest value projects.
“This work to prioritise our next wave of growth will continue through 2025, setting us up well for high-quality growth through the rest of the decade.”
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