Saline Aquifer Drilling Project with National Grid

• £2m investment in the UK’s first drilling assessment of a saline formation site
• Site is 70km off the Yorkshire coast.
• Involved drilling a well in the seabed to gather data

ETI have co-invested £2m in a National Grid project which has carried out the UK’s first drilling assessment of a saline formation site for the storage of CO₂, at a site 70km off the Yorkshire coast.

The multi million pound project represents a major step forward in the creation of a CCS industry in the UK for multiple power stations and industrial sites, to store their CO₂ rather than release into the
atmosphere.

National Grid has led the drilling programme at the identified saline formation, a layer of porous sandstone rock over 1km below the seabed. The operation, using standard oil and gas drilling activities, involved drilling a well in the seabed to gather data to confirm that CO₂ can be safely and permanently stored at the site, while also confirming the scale and economics of the store.

The results of the drilling have confirmed the previous assessment that the store is very large and capable of storing carbon dioxide from several sources over a number of decades. The site is close to the shore and, importantly, near to two major clusters of CO₂ emitters in the UK making it an ideal storage location.