Wood to optimise hydrogen storage for Centrica’s Rough field

Wood, a global leader in consulting and engineering, has been awarded a contract by Centrica Energy Storage (CES) for the redevelopment of the UK’s Rough field in readiness for future hydrogen storage.

The Rough reservoir, located in the Southern North Sea, has been used to store natural gas safely for over thirty years and has the potential to provide over half of the UK’s hydrogen storage requirements.

The front-end engineering design (FEED) contract, awarded to Wood, entails new pipelines, a new unmanned installation, as well as onshore injection facilities at the Easington Gas Terminal, is the first step in making the field hydrogen ready.

Steve Nicol, Executive President, Operations at Wood said: “We are proud to be a part of this innovative redevelopment project, critical to both the UK’s long-term energy security and its industrial decarbonisation commitments.  Hydrogen, alongside offshore wind and carbon capture and storage is vital to the UK’s net zero ambition and will be key to decarbonising industries, transport and power.

“Wood’s strong heritage in the UK’s offshore and onshore sectors, combined with our deep domain knowledge and engineering expertise means we are uniquely placed to modify and redevelop existing infrastructure, providing safe, reliable energy for the UK’s future requirements.”

Martin Scargill, Managing Director, Centrica Energy Storage said: “We have huge ambitions for the future of Rough and our partnership with Wood is an important stepping stone on the path to realising those ambitions. We are ready to invest in futureproofing this critical asset subject to agreeing a regulatory support model that would underpin gas storage investment in the UK.”

The contract award creates around 50 new roles in the UK.

CES recently announced their ambition for the Rough field to become the largest long duration hydrogen storage facility in the world however, a final investment decision for the Rough Redevelopment project is still dependent on a government support model that would underpin gas storage investment in the UK.