Air Liquide Engineering & Construction, Shell Catalysts & Technologies, and Technip Energies have been awarded contracts to deliver the process design studies, including the design of the main hydrogen production and carbon capture plant for the proposed project.

The three companies are set to participate in a competition to engineer the technologies and plant design needed for the project to move to the front-end engineering and design (FEED) phase, ahead of final investment decision (FID), expected in the mid 2020s.

H2 View understands, the successful company will then become the project’s preferred low-carbon hydrogen production technology provider during FEED, engineering, procurement and construction, as well as into the operation of the plant.

Announced in April (2022), Uniper and Shell are planning to establish a blue hydrogen production facility, which they say could offer up to 720MW of capacity, while utilising gas reformation technology with carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Read more: Shell, Uniper partner to develop a new blue hydrogen production project in Humber, UK

It is hoped the hydrogen produced from the site could be used to decarbonise industry, transport, and power throughout the Humber region, while capturing up to 1.6 million tonnes of carbon per year.

“It’s never been more important to explore new ways to use the UK’s natural gas together with carbon capture technology. And we are making strong progress with Uniper to do this,” said Paul Black, Business Development Manager for Upstream, Integrated Gas and New Energies at Shell.

“We aim to build hydrogen production to boost the country’s long-term energy security and decarbonise heavy industry, transport and power in the Humber region,” Black added.

Guy Phillips, Senior Business Development Manager, Hydrogen at Uniper, commented, “The award of PDP contracts represents a significant step towards our plans for low-carbon hydrogen production at Killingholme.

“This will help to decarbonise the UK’s largest carbon dioxide emitting industrial region. Hydrogen will be one of the solutions to achieve the UK’s target of becoming carbon neutral by 2050, and the Humber region and this project, will contribute to achieving it.”