A number of the oil and gas industry’s biggest players have joined forces to speed up the decarbonisation of industry and power.

The North Endurance Partnership (NEP) brings together BP, Eni, Equinor, Shell, Total and National Grid with the aim of developing offshore carbon dioxide (CO2) transport and storage infrastructure in the UK North Sea.

The initiative will aid plans to establish decarbonised industrial clusters in the north-east of England as part of the proposed Net Zero Teesside (NZT) and Zero Carbon Humber (ZCH) projects.

Both schemes aim to go live by 2026 with the goal of achieving net zero as early as 2030 through a combination of carbon capture, hydrogen and fuel-switching.

If successful, it’s claimed NEP, which is being headed up BP, will decarbonise almost half of the UK’s industrial emissions.

CO2 emissions will be transported from NZT and ZCH via an offshore pipeline network to offshore geological storage ducts beneath the UK North Sea.

As part of the launch, NEP has submitted a bid for funding through Phase 2 of the Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge in an effort to accelerate the deployment of the grid.

The ￡170 million Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge is part of a wider ￡4.7 billion Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge Fund set up by the UK Government with the intention of addressing industrial and societal challenges using domestic research and development.