Carbon emissions specialists Topsoe have landed a contract with Essor Oil for carbon capture and gas cleaning at the Stanlow oil refinery in Cheshire.
Essar Oil UK have agreed the deal in exchange for its Danish supplier’s technology cleaning carbon-heavy gases at the £360 million facility. Following installation, it is scheduled from 2028 to be collecting an estimated 1 million tonnes of CO2 every year. That’s the notional equivalent of taking 220,000 ICE cars off the roads.
When completed, the oil company’s amended plant will pump the captured gas into empty fields under the sea in Liverpool Bay.
Besides carbon-based compounds, Topsoe’s proprietary technology, branded as SNOX, will strip nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide, dust and other contaminants from the flue gas emitted in the production process. SNOX recovers sulfur in the form of commercial grade concentrated sulfuric acid. Its process works without consumption of water and limestone, and without generating any waste or ocean discharge.
It will be among a variety of cleansing technologies to be integrated into Essar’s planned upgrade of the facility, known as its ICC – industrial carbon capture – plant.
Essar Oil’s CEO Deepak Maheshwari said: “We are ready to move into the next phase of decarbonisation. With an investment of $1.2 billion, Essar Oil UK is positioned to be the world’s first low carbon refinery. The industrial carbon capture facility, combined with our upcoming hydrogen fuel switching project, will reduce the refinery’s CO2 emissions by 95%”.
Elena Scaltritti, Topsoe’s chief commercial officer, hailed the deal as a landmark for the company’s development in the UK. “We are thrilled to have been chosen as technology licensor for Essar Oil UK and support them in meeting their decarbonization targets”.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story mistakenly attributed the disclosed benchmark value of the refinery to the non-disclosed value of Topsoe’s new contract with Essor. The author apologises for this confusion, and is happy to have corrected the text as now shown.
