Offshore Europe ‘23

Wood Group Signs With Sgn

The international engineering company Wood Group has reaped the benfits of receiving a £430m government-backed green transition loan.

After receiving the £430m loan Wood grew its upstream oil and gas business by 17% so that it accounted for more than $3bn (£2.4bn) in revenue in 2022, up from $2.6bn in 2021. This is according to an analysis of the company’s financial results by a leading UK newspaper.

Wood and SGN, a gas distribution company, are currently working together planning vital hydrogen transmission infrastructure in Scotland and southern England. This work aligns with the UK’s commitment to achieving Net Zero by 2050, reports the company.

Over the upcoming year, Wood will undertake three preliminary front-end engineering design (pre-FEED) studies to determine the most suitable route and design for dedicated hydrogen pipelines and associated transmission infrastructure.

This innovative concept involves repurposing existing natural gas infrastructure, effectively establishing a connection between hydrogen producers and energy users who aim to utilise hydrogen to reduce their carbon emissions.

“These projects are key enablers for the UK and Scottish government’s carbon reduction commitments. We are delighted to be further growing our relationship with SGN, working together on these hydrogen projects which are instrumental in decarbonising existing UK gas networks and offering sustainable, low carbon fuel across the country,” comments Azad Hessamodini, Executive President of Consulting at Wood.

“Wood is playing a vital part in the UK’s development of hydrogen infrastructure, utilising our global hydrogen pipeline expertise as trusted technical advisors to deliver impactful projects that enable Britain’s net zero goals.”

These moves will pave the way for low-carbon H2 use in Scotland & England.

SSE has outlined plans to invest up to £40 billion over the next decade, creating more than 1,000 green jobs a year, saying the record sum would mark one of the largest clean energy investment programmes the UK and Scotland have ever seen. The group added that its “strong” financial performance, combined with “increasing visibility over its pipeline of investment opportunities over the coming decade”, has enabled it to update its previous capital expenditure plans, with the fully funded element of the plan increasing by more than 40 per cent to £18bn.

Alistair Phillips Davies, chief executive of the group that can trace its origins back 80 years to the first hydro schemes in the Highlands, said: “This £40bn-plus plan is a massive commitment to the UK and, at around £10m every single day, amounts to one of the largest clean energy investment programmes this country has ever seen – helping create and support thousands of new jobs and powering green growth from Shetland to the Isle of Wight.

“ As a Scottish-headquartered business, we are incredibly proud to be one of the biggest investors in Scotland, supporting tens of thousands of jobs and helping the country accelerate progress towards net zero.”

UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt branded the record investment programme “a further vote of confidence in the British economy”, adding: “We have the second-largest offshore wind capacity in the world, with renewables providing 40 per cent of our electricity, and investment like this ensures long-term energy security, lower bills and thousands of jobs in our industrial heartlands.”

According to AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould, SSE now intends to spend £18bn by March 2027 rather than £12.5bn by March 2025. He comments: “Utilities, even ones whose focus is renewable energy, are conscious of accusations of profiteering in these inflationstricken times, and SSE is careful to flag its record capital investment budget, the acceleration of its drive to net zero and the planned dividend cut for the coming fiscal year as it reveals a healthy jump in underlying profits for the 12 months to March 2023.”

Looking further ahead, SSE has set out a series of ambitious targets for the next decade to 2031. These include delivering a fivefold increase in renewables output, increasing renewable and other low-carbon generation capacity to more than 16GW, including new flexible technologies such as carbon capture and storage, hydrogen and batteries. A spokesman commented: “SSE plc is investing

The upcoming Offshore Europe event will highlight turbines, offshore power systems maintenance and repair, oil, chemical, engineering, technology, and energy storage topics.

5-8 September 2023 P&J Live, Aberdeen, Scotland

SPE Offshore Europe is the energy industry’s platform for navigating towards a better energy future.

Our 50th anniversary event will create a space for collaboration and learning in order to drive the oil and gas sector forward, bringing together the entire energy value chain back to business, face to face.

Created by the industry, for the industry, SPE Offshore Europe 2023 will be celebrating a 50-year history of innovation. With an influential conference programme organised by the Society of Petroleum Engineers, an exhibitor showcase that puts sector solutions on a world stage, and year-round digital content, join us at the industry’s primary meeting point.

Our 2023 conference theme “Securing sustainable and equitable energy for the next 50 years and beyond” will tie closely with our four key themes of Energy Security, Energy Transition, Innovative Technology and Future Talent. Created by a specialist committee of industry thought leaders, including peerreviewed technical abstracts, the conference is truly “by the industry, for the industry”.

This show offers the largest free-to-attend conference dedicated to the offshore energy community.

£12.5bn over the next five years, or £7m a day, to deliver a Net Zero Acceleration Programme to address climate change head on.

“This includes plans by SSE Renewables to double our installed renewable energy capacity to 8GW by 2026. We also have ambitious targets to increase our renewables output fivefold to over 50TWh annually by 2031 – enough to be able to power around 20 million homes each year. This will see us maintaining a sustained renewables pipeline in excess of 15GW, and a trebling of our owned renewables capacity to over 13GW (net) from c.4GW (net) today.” www.offshore-europe.co.uk

The company is actively exploring opportunities to extend into selected new international markets in North America, Northern Europe and Asia Pacific. In September 2021, SSE moved into Japan with the creation of a new joint ownership company, SSE Pacifico .