Great Britain’s regulator, North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA), has offered a license for gas storage in the East Irish Sea to dCarbonX, a subsidiary of Snam, which is expected to propel the UK’s decarbonization aspirations forward, thanks to offshore hydrogen storage.
The award of a gas storage license, which came on August 11, allows dCarbonX to make progress toward seeking the necessary regulatory approvals required before gas storage operations can begin, including further approvals from the NSTA. The company believes that this will provide a major boost for the UK’s decarbonization plans in the decades ahead.
This gas storage license for the Gateway hydrogen salt cavern storage project, currently designated as GS008, sits immediately to the east of the GS007 Bains license, awarded to Snam’s subsidiary in 2023, where the firm is developing the depleted Bains gas field for an offshore gas storage facility with a capacity of 1.4 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas.
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Subject to further regulatory approvals, dCarbonX proposes to develop the Gateway salt caverns in modular economic steps, synchronized with the market, for future hydrogen offshore storage with an estimated total energy storage capacity potential of some 9 TWh.
Snam focuses not only on transportation, with a network exceeding 40,000 kilometers across Italy and abroad, but also on storage, holding one-sixth of the European Union’s entire storage capacity of around 18 bcm.
The firm also has its fingers in the regasification jar, where it currently ranks as the third largest European player, managing or co-managing an annual capacity of 28 bcm.
Aside from awarding offshore energy and carbon storage licenses, the North Sea Transition Authority is also working to curtail excessive emissions of greenhouse gases by keeping a careful eye on flaring and venting activity.
As a result, the UK regulator recently presented Chrysaor, which became part of Harbour Energy in 2021, with a fine of £150,000 ($200,269.5) for vent breaches at its offshore platform in the North Sea.
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