Essar’s Stanlow facility to transform into world’s first green refinery

Essar Energy Transition (EET) will turn the UK’s Stanlow facility into the world’s first decarbonised green refinery that will consume blue hydrogen to meet its heating and power requirements, Essar Capital Director Prashant Ruia said on Tuesday.

The HyNet project of EET, which recently secured a $650 million in facilities, will produce 350 megawatts (MW) of blue hydrogen in the first phase and an additional 1 gigawatt (GW) in the second phase, Ruia said at FT’s Energy Transition Summit India.

• Also read: UK Govt backs EET’s green hydrogen project

“We are going to make this (Stanlow) the world’s first decarbonised green refinery. We are decarbonising 95 per cent of our carbon dioxide emissions that are released when crude oil is processed into fuels like petrol and diesel,” he added.

EET Fuels is investing $1.2 billion over the next five years to decarbonise its operations and targeting a 95 per cent cut in emissions by 2030 through energy efficiency, carbon capture and fuel switching, which will lead to 12.5 per cent reduction in the North West’s overall regional carbon emissions.

Use of blue hydrogen in the refinery process will decarbonise up to 2.5 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent to taking 1.1 million cars off the roads

“Using hydrogen for the refinery heating and power requirement will be first globally,” Ruia noted.

Last week, the UK government announced 21.7 billion pounds of funding over 25 years to support the construction of two carbon capture clusters in northern England that include large blue hydrogen projects. The money will be for the HyNet hub in Merseyside and the East Coast Cluster hubs in Teesside, which will see more than 8.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year stored under the Irish Sea and North Sea.

EET is piloting the HyNet project. 

• Also read: EET Fuels secure $650 million in financing facilities