BP cancelled hydrogen scheme after refusing to pay Teesworks additional remediation charges

Energy giant paid undisclosed fees to Teesworks Ltd for projects it eventually shelved

This edition of The Teesside Lead gives the latest in the Teesworks saga. It might seem like a nothing story on the surface… ‘company pays other company to help develop mutual plan’. But the reason this is a story is the reason Teesworks has become so controversial in the first place.

The 50-50 joint venture was handed over to Chris Musgrave and Martin Corney, and they were given the option to buy land for £1 an acre, because they promised to take on responsibility of remediating the polluted steelworks site.

What this story shows is they haven’t done that, and instead are expecting inward investors to Teesside to foot the bill they said they’d pay. And after they paid, they told them to pay more.

In the meantime, they’ve taken £124m out of the project.

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Thanks as always for reading,

Leigh

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Teesworks sign at the site entrance (Image: Leigh Jones).

The majority of Teesworks Ltd was handed to private partners for free on the promise they would take on remediation of the site themselves, but The Teesside Lead can reveal the company was receiving money from BP to advance plans for two hydrogen schemes which were ultimately cancelled.

I originally submitted the FOI request in July last year, but have only just received the information requested after a battle to get it released. It reveals correspondence between BP and Teesworks Ltd which took place in February 2025, in which the energy giant says it cannot commit to paying Teesworks more money until an option agreement for land to be used for its now-cancelled H2Teesside blue hydrogen project was signed.

An email from a senior manager of the H2Teesside project at BP to a contact at Teesworks, sent on 18 February 2025, says: “Martin Corney called me last night… can you shed any light on this one?”.

It appears the call was a demand from Teesworks Ltd for more money than had been agreed.

The email continues by saying BP is “keen to progress” an application with the Environment Agency that would involve re-using waste material from the contaminated site of the former steelworks in the remediation, and that the company wanted to “understand possible remediation acceleration levers”.

Martin Corney and Chris Musgrave are the businessmen and lead shareholders of Teesworks Ltd. It’s thought they’ve received £124m in cash that’s been extracted by the private sector from the project, which has seen more than £550m of taxpayers’ money put in.