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Mission Innovation to spearhead clean energy innovation
Majority of UK offshore workforce transitioning to low carbon energy by 2030
The offshore energy workforce mix will change significantly in the next 10 years, with roles in decarbonised energies projected to increase from 20 to 65 per cent of all jobs in the sector. According to new research from Robert Gordon University (RGU), over 90 per cent of the UK’s oil and gas workforce have medium to high skills transferability and are well-positioned to work in adjacent energy sectors like offshore wind, carbon capture utilization and storage, and hydrogen.
With over $241 billion in investments to be made in capital and operating activities in the UK offshore energy sector over the next ten years, around 200,000 skilled people are expected to be required in the UK offshore energy industry to ensure delivery in 2030.
As stated in the UK Offshore Energy Workforce Transferability Review by RGU, around 80 per cent of the jobs in 2030 are envisaged to be in nine key job families – operations, technicians, engineering, projects, commercial/business development/marketing, procurement/supply chain management, finance, HR, and HSE. Soft skills and other non-technical skills are generally highly transferable to adjacent energy sectors.
Around 100,000 of the jobs in 2030 are projected to be filled by people transferring from existing oil and gas jobs to offshore renewable roles, new graduates, and new recruitment from outside the existing UK offshore energy sector.
Currently, around 160,000 people directly and indirectly employed in the UK offshore energy sector in 2021. To underpin the developing offshore wind, hydrogen, carbon capture and storage as well as the vital ongoing oil and gas activities in the UK that number must increase by at least 40,000. The offshore energy workforce mix is also expected to change with over 65 per cent of the workforce by 2030 projected to support low carbon energy activities.
As for the spread, of the 200,000 people projected to be employed in the UK offshore energy sector by 2030, around 90,000 or 45 per cent are expected to support offshore wind, 70,000 or 35 per cent will work in oil and gas, and the remaining 40,000 or 20 per cent will cover other offshore-related energy projects and clusters.
The review also indicated that the impact of a reduced ambition, combined with a lower activity level and accelerated decline in the oil and gas industry could reduce the offshore energy workforce requirements to fewer than 140,000 jobs by 2030.
Paul de Leeuw, director of the energy transition institute at RGU and the Review’s lead author, said: “Successful delivery of the UK and the devolved Governments’ energy transition ambitions has the opportunity to secure around 200,000 jobs in 2030 for the offshore energy workforce. “With the overall number of jobs in the UK oil and gas industry projected to decline over time, the degree of transferability of jobs to adjacent energy sectors such as offshore wind, carbon capture and storage, hydrogen or other industrial sectors will be key to ensuring the UK retains its world-class skills and capabilities. “With many of the skills and competencies required for the offshore energy sector to be highly interchangeable, the energy transition offers a unique opportunity to create a new world-class net-zero energy workforce.
“There is a significant role for the higher education sector to play in ensuring the targets set out by governments and the industry are achieved and that the upskilling and reskilling of the workforce is delivered to meet the demands of the changing energy landscape”.
UK Energy Minister Anne-Marie Trevelyan added: “Through our leading North Sea Transition Deal, we set out how we will make certain we have an energy skills base in the UK that is fit for the future, while our Green Jobs Taskforce will advise on how we can create the broader skilled workforce to deliver net-zero by 2050”.
Minister for Just Transition, Employment and Fair Work Richard Lochhead said: “The re-deployment and, where necessary, re-training of oil and gas workers will be key to ensuring a just transition over the next decade, and to meeting the labour and skills needs of a growing renewables sector. “Our Climate Emergency Skills Action Plan puts knowledge and skills at the heart of a systematic approach to retaining skills and expertise as we transition to becoming a net-zero economy”.
Celia Anderson of RenewableUK concluded: “Renewables are creating new opportunities for people across the UK, including workers leaving fossil fuel industries who have relevant transferable skills. We’re going to see a huge expansion in offshore wind over the course of this decade, quadrupling our current capacity by 2030.
“That means we’ll need a massive influx of highly-skilled UK workers to build vital new energy infrastructure, as this report shows. Former oil and gas workers offer a wealth of knowledge and experience in this field.
“Another important step is for Government to ensure that it reaches consenting decisions on major renewable energy projects on time so that we can maintain our strong project pipeline in the years ahead. This will help the UK to help to reach net-zero emissions as fast as possible”.
Damen's FCS 7011: fast, economical marine access in a changing world
In January this year, the first of Damen Shipyards Group’s revolutionary new Fast Crew Supplier (FCS) 7011 class was launched at Damen Shipyards Antalya, Turkey. Representing the very latest in marine access thinking, the vessel has been developed in consultation with the offshore energy industry to meet the needs of a sector facing pressure to its costs in the face of fluctuations in the price of oil and increasingly competitive renewable energy. As a cost-effective crew transportation alternative boasting robust safety characteristics, this innovative design of the FCS 7011 offers a viable alternative to helicopter transport and has already gained substantial interest from clients in the southern North Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, Brazil and West Africa.
A new vessel
The momentum behind the development of such a vessel was driven by a number of factors, including the demand from both oil and gas (O&G) operators and the exceptional growth in offshore renewables for increased safety and efficiency, and reduced cost. in the North Sea which, due to its pioneering role since the late 1960s in offshore oil and gas production, so often takes a lead in emerging trends. This time it is the decline in production as fields reach and pass their peaks that is bringing with it a new economic landscape for marine access. With the traditional O&G majors beginning to wind down their activities in the region to focus on assets elsewhere, a new generation of field operators are moving in with the aim of extracting the remaining hydrocarbons left in these declining fields. To do this profitably requires a business model based on low overheads and a more agile way of working that the incumbent oil majors simply cannot replicate. This requires that costs be driven down to the absolute minimum while at the same time ensuring that the demand for ever-higher levels of safety is satisfied. As a result, logistics is one of the operational areas that has found itself under the spotlight.
With its experience and capacity for innovation, Damen is well positioned to work with these new, stripped-down, energy groups to help them achieve their objectives and has responded by producing a range of increasingly advanced vessels in partnership with equipment manufacturers producing complementary innovations in mission-critical equipment such as motion-compensated gangways and stabilisers.
Greater capacity
70 metres in length and with a capacity of up to 122 passengers, the FCS 7011 delivers greater efficiencies than ever before through its ability to carry much larger numbers of personnel than today’s crew transfer vessels (CTVs) for greater distances (200nm+) at higher speeds (up to 40 knots). The accommodation is one of the most critical elements of the project as it has been developed based on a maximum transit time for any individual being no more than twelve hours, that being the limit permitted without the requirement of permanent overnight accommodation. This opens the door to moving away from dayrate structures towards a pay per journey model and, potentially, vessel sharing, whereby multiple offshore installations can be served in a single round trip, thereby delivering substantial savings in both time and operational costs.
The design of the FCS 7011 pays particular attention to on board comfort and safety, during both transit and transfer. During transit, the vessel’s Sea Axe bow plays an important role in reducing slamming to a minimum. Meanwhile, the accommodation is located just aft of amidships, where the pitching motions are minimal. Damen has incorporated interceptors within the vessel’s stern to reduce both pitching and rolling when underway. Inside, the passengers have luxurious reclining seating with excellent visibility that helps them to maintain their awareness of the sea, thereby enabling them to adjust to the motion and reducing the potential for seasickness.
Damen has also integrated numerous motion-compensating technologies to achieve the optimum in comfort and safety. This involves a Kongsberg DP system, a tailor-made Ampelmann gangway, VEEM gyrostabiliser, MTU main engines, Hamilton waterjets, Danfoss shaft generators and Veth bow thrusters. Each has been assessed relative to all the others with the objective of creating a tightly integrated advanced control system that allows each part to excel in its specific task. The result is a unified system that is greater than the sum of its parts and which sets new standards in the marine access market on a global scale.
The launching of the Aqua Helix marks an important milestone in the development of this new class and a significant step towards its completion. Following the conclusion of outfitting activities now taking place, the FCS 7011 will undergo sea trials off Antalya to test and demonstrate her capabilities. Following this, she will sail to the Netherlands, where Ampelmann will install their gangway system, ready for fully-integrated proof of concept trials in the North Sea.
David Stibbe Director Business Development & Market Intelligence E david.stibbe@damen.com I damen.com
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Spotlight on major projects in carbon capture realm
Carbon capture utilization and storage or CCUS has gained momentum as a topic of global interest in the last couple of years as energy transition talks and plans intensified, especially in the offshore energy and maritime industries.
Carbon capture is a process where the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2), the key contributor to global warming, is captured in the power generation and industrial processes, preventing its release into the atmosphere.
In addition to reducing overall carbon emissions, capturing these emissions at their source and storing them underground is one of the key elements of energy transition and is critical to achieving net-zero target by 2050. The pipeline of CCUS projects has been growing lately driven by global climate targets of the Paris Agreement as well as increased interest from policy makers, investors, and industry players looking at ways to mitigate the effects of climate change that go beyond renewable energy.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), after years of declining investment, plans for more than 30 new integrated CCUS facilities have been announced since 2017 with the vast majority being in the United States and Europe, but projects are also planned in Australia, China, Korea, the Middle East, and New Zealand.
The IEA also pointed out that almost one-third of planned CCUS projects involve the development of industrial CCUS hubs with shared CO2 transport and storage infrastructure.
The energy agency believes that reaching net-zero will be virtually impossible without CCUS as the technology contributes both to reducing emissions in key sectors
Port of Rotterdam CO2 Transport Hub and Offshore Storage project, known as Porthos, is a joint venture between the Port of Rotterdam Authority, Gasunie, and EBN. The Porthos project will transport the CO2 captured by the industry in the Port of Rotterdam and store it in empty gas fields beneath the North Sea.
directly and to removing CO2 to balance emissions that are challenging to avoid.
CCUS is also expected to play a role in the decarbonization of the oil and gas production with major oil and gas players like BP, Shell, Total, Equinor, Eni, and others participating in the development of these projects. The IEA stated that more than 20 per cent of global oil and gas production is covered by 2050 net-zero commitments, with CCUS expected to play a role in every case.
While the portfolio of CCUS projects is increasingly diverse, we will be highlighting several major projects currently under development, which are located in the UK as well as in Norway and the Netherlands. Some of them also linked to low-carbon hydrogen production.
UK’s Acorn
There are two elements to the Acorn project in the UK, the carbon capture and the hydrogen element. Acorn Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS)
'CCUS projects needed in energy transition'
and Acorn Hydrogen are both part of developments planned at the St. Fergus gas terminal near Peterhead, Aberdeenshire.
Acorn CCS is designed to take advantage of existing offshore oil and gas infrastructure and a well understood offshore CO2 storage site in the North Sea. The project holds the first UK CO2 appraisal and storage licence awarded by the Oil and Gas Authority in late 2018 and is looking to establish CO2 mitigation infrastructure essential for meeting the Scottish and UK Government Net-Zero targets.
Through the Acorn Hydrogen project, the North Sea natural gas will be reformed into clean hydrogen, with CO2 emissions safely mitigated through the Acorn CCS infrastructure. This hydrogen will then be used in transport applications and in the gas grid to decarbonise heating in homes and industries.
When it comes to recent developments related to the project, Japan’s Mitsui in March 2021 invested in Storegga, which was at the time the lead developer of Acorn. Mitsui said it would help Storegga accelerate its vision and commitment by using its extensive knowledge of upstream oil and gas industries and strong global networks.
Later that same month, Acorn CCS and Hydrogen project received £31 million in funding from the UK government. The funds were allocated to Scotland’s Net-Zero Infrastructure project — led by Storegga’s subsidiary Pale Blue Dot and which comprises the Acorn CCS project — to fund offshore and onshore engineering studies connecting industrial sites across east Scotland with access to carbon storage.
While the Acorn project was initially led by Storegga and Pale Blue Dot, Storegga, Shell, and Harbour Energy in April 2021 became equal partners in the CCS project. The partners will develop the project through to final investment decision (FID), construction, operation, and beyond.
HyNet North West. Image HyNet.
Using CO2 from the St. Fergus gas terminal, from Scotland’s carbonintensive industries and imported CO2 from the rest of the UK and Europe into Peterhead Port, Acorn is expected to store at least 5Mt/year of CO2 by 2030, half the CO2 emissions set out in the UK Government’s ‘Ten Point Plan’ for a ‘Green Industrial Revolution’ by 2030. The project is expected to be operational by the middle of the decade.
H2H Saltend
As both CCS and hydrogen are expected to play a key role in helping the industry reach net-zero targets, Norway’s Equinor has engaged in a project to develop one of the UK’s – and the world’s – first at-scale facilities to produce hydrogen from natural gas in combination with carbon capture and storage. The project is called Hydrogen to Humber Saltend (H2H Saltend) and it is Zero Carbon Humber’s anchor project. It provides the beginnings of a decarbonised industrial cluster in the Humber region, the UK’s largest by emissions.
The project will be located at px Group’s Saltend Chemicals Park near the city of Hull and its initial phase comprises a 600-megawatt auto thermal reformer with carbon capture, the largest plant of its kind in the world, to convert natural gas to hydrogen.
This will enable a large-scale hydrogen network, open to both blue hydrogen (produced from natural gas with CCS) and green hydrogen (produced from electrolysis of water using renewable power), as well as a network for transporting and storing captured CO2 emissions.
It will enable industrial customers in the Park to fully switch over to hydrogen, and the power plant in the Park to move to a 30 per cent hydrogen to natural gas blend. As a result, emissions from Saltend Chemicals Park will reduce by nearly 900,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.
Equinor and its partners will mature the project towards a final investment decision during 2023 with potential first production by 2026.
Carbon capture with Net Zero Teesside
Norwegian energy major Equinor is also a partner in the BP-led Net Zero Teesside project development in the UK, which proposes to build a newbuild gas-fired power station with carbon capture, and extend the CCS infrastructure to the neighbouring industrial cluster. Other energy companies involved in this project include Eni, Shell, and Total.
Net Zero Teesside is a CCUS project with an aim of taking CO2 from the range of industries in Teesside, then taking it to a central gathering point, compressing it, sending it offshore, and storing it in an underground reservoir in the North Sea. Teesside’s location offers access to storage sites in the southern North Sea with more than a gigaton of CO2 storage capacity.
The project plans to capture up to 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions, the equivalent to the annual energy use of over 3 million UK homes.
The offshore transportation and storage infrastructure developed through the Northern Endurance partnership in the southern North Sea will serve the Net Zero Teesside and the nearby CCUS project Zero Carbon Humber (ZCH).
The Northern Endurance was formed in October 2020 between Net Zero Teesside consortium partners – BP, Eni, Equinor, Shell, and Total – and National Grid to develop carbon dioxide transport and storage infrastructure in the UK North Sea, with BP as the operating company. If successful, the Northern Endurance Partnership linked to NZT and ZCH will allow decarbonisation of nearly 50 per cent of the UK’s total industrial emissions.Both projects aim to be commissioned by 2026 with realistic pathways to achieve net-zero as early as 2030 through a combination of carbon capture, hydrogen, and fuelswitching.
HyNet North West
The UK’s HyNet North West project is based on the production of hydrogen from natural gas. It includes the development of a new hydrogen pipeline and the creation of the UK’s carbon capture and storage infrastructure for industrial CO2.
The carbon capture and storage project will re-use the Liverpool Bay oil and gas fields in the East Irish Sea. The site, owned by Italy’s oil and gas company Eni, has an estimated CO2 storage capacity of 130 million tonnes and gas extraction is likely to cease within the required project timeframe. The UK’s offshore oil and gas regulator, the Oil and Gas Authority (OGA), awarded the CO2 appraisal and storage licence to Eni in October 2020. In March 2021, the UK government granted £33 million in funds to support the HyNet project, covering around 50 per cent of the investment necessary to finalise ongoing planning studies with the aim of the site becoming operational by 2025. The funds were received from UK Research and Innovation, through its Industrial Decarbonisation Challenge fund.
Following the £33 million funding, the project also received £39 million in funding from the consortium partner contribution in April 2021, which will allow the project to accelerate to FID in 2023 for the initial phase.
Once operational, the project will help reduce CO2 emissions by up to 10 million tonnes every year by 2030, delivering 80 per cent of the Government’s new UK-wide target of 5GW of low carbon hydrogen and playing a crucial role in the target of net-zero emissions in 2050.
Progressive Energy, Cadent, CF Fertilisers, Eni UK, Essar, Hanson,
