INEOS and Petroineos, who own and operate large petrochemical and manufacturing sites at Grangemouth, have signed a memorandum of understanding with the Acorn CCS Project to work together on Scotland’s first carbon capture and storage (CCS) project.

The Acorn project, located in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, and currently in its engineering and design phase, is one of the UK’s most mature CCS and hydrogen projects. It is due to be operational by the mid-2020s and aims to achieve more than half of the 10m tonnes a year of CO2 storage targeted by the UK government’s ten point ‘green industrial revolution’ plan by 2030.

The latest agreement aims to pave the way for a CCS network linking Scotland’s industrial heartland to the Acorn CO2 transport and storage system in northeast Scotland by 2027. Captured CO2 will be transported by a pipeline system to permanent offshore disposal sites.

Nick Cooper, CEO of Storegga, lead developer of the Acorn CCS project, said: “The Acorn CCS and hydrogen project is advanced, highly scalable and has clear visibility of a large CO2 customer base. Acorn provides critical carbon reduction infrastructure to the growing Scottish cluster of emitters and to the wider UK.”