Essar Oil UK Limited has announced a plan to build a £360 million new carbon capture plant at its Stanlow refinery near the River Mersey in Chesire.

Essar said it is investing over £1 billion into a range of energy efficiency, fuel-switching, and carbon capture initiatives, designed to decarbonise its production processes significantly by 2030.

It said that once complete in 2027, the new carbon capture plant will eliminate an estimated 0.81 million tons of CO2 per year – the equivalent of taking 400,000 cars off the road, eliminating nearly 40% of all Stanlow emissions.

“Essar will achieve its decarbonisation targets through a combination of incremental (energy efficiency and operating improvements) and transformational projects, including the £360 million carbon capture plant announced today, but also as a result of the significant investments Essar is making into hydrogen and biofuels,” said Essar.

“Kent plc has been awarded a pre-FEED engineering contract to develop the facility that will take the CO2 emitted from one of Europe’s largest full-Residue Fluidised Catalytic Cracking units, located at the Stanlow refinery.

“The gas will be permanently sequestered into depleted gas fields under the sea in Liverpool Bay, as part of the HyNet cluster infrastructure in the North West of England.”

Essar Oil UK CEO Deepak Maheshwari said: “This new carbon capture plant is the single biggest initiative to decarbonise our processes and a core element to our hugely ambitious decarbonisation strategy.

“Our ambition is to become a leading low carbon refinery.

“This is a massive undertaking, but it is a journey we are fully committed to.

“Not only is it the right environmental thing to do, it will future proof the critical Stanlow refinery for the long term, protecting jobs and industry, while also placing Stanlow at the very centre of the UK’s energy transition.”