BP cancels green hydrogen project at Teesworks
Plus: Tees Valley Combined Authority confirms chief executive's redundancy
Back for another mid-week edition of The Teesside Lead, this is number 37 overall.
I sat down yesterday morning to write today’s newsletter with an empty notebook and a blank page on the screen in front of me. That all changed with an email from BP’s press team responding to a question I asked them last week.
As a freelance journalist I’m grateful to you for even reading this. Eyes on The Teesside Lead gives power to my arm, and allows me to ask questions to people like BP without getting ignored.
If you’re able to support financially, a paid subscription to The Teesside Lead is incredibly cheap! Only £4.99 for a monthly subscription, or £49 for a year in advance.
Your support allows me to keep digging, to keep asking questions, and to avoid getting a proper job!
BP has shelved its flagship green hydrogen project on Teesside, with more than 700 promised jobs at Teesworks now set to vanish.
After it told shareholders last week it was cutting investment in renewable energy and increasing oil and gas production, BP has now told me it will no longer be focused on delivering its HyGreen green hydrogen production facility at Teesworks.
It remains committed, however, to its NZT gas-fired power plant, the Northern Endurance Partnership (NEP) carbon capture scheme, and the H2Teesside blue hydrogen project.
“We’ve been clear in our recent strategy reset announcement that we’re focused on high-graded projects in hydrogen and carbon capture,” their spokesperson told me, “prioritizing 5-7 projects for this decade.
“In the UK, our focus is on the significant projects in Teesside – NZT Power, NEP and H2Teesside.”
NZT and NEP were backed with billions of pounds of investment from the UK Government in December.
As a so-called “blue hydrogen” project, H2Teesside will create hydrogen by breaking down natural gas’s elemental components, and then capture the carbon dioxide which is created as a by-product.
Meanwhile, HyGreen would have used renewable energy sources to release hydrogen atoms from water.
H2Teesside is currently working its way through the gears of the Planning Inspectorate, with a decision on whether to go ahead to be made by Secretary of State Ed Miliband by the end of the summer.
HyGreen, which was to be BP’s first green hydrogen project in the UK, now looks to be high and dry as the oil giant looks to appease activist investors unhappy with low dividends compared to those paid out by their industry rivals.
A planning application for HyGreen was submitted to Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council in April last year, but the application expired last week, only days after BP’s announcement to cut back on green investment and ramp up fossil fuel production.
The planning application showed the scheme would build a pipeline network to provide green hydrogen to industrial businesses across Teesside.
When it was announced in November 2021, BP said it hoped to create 600 construction jobs and a further 100 once HyGreen was operational. “HyGreen Teesside will be vital for supporting low-carbon industry and power projects across the region,” they said at the time.
Mayor Ben Houchen said at the time the project was “yet another coup for the region as we lead the UK in creating the cleaner, safer and healthier jobs and communities of the future”. Tees Valley Combined Authority did not respond to a request to comment on BP’s shelving of the scheme.
The UK Government’s Department for Energy Security & Net Zero refused to comment on BP’s abandonment of the scheme since it’s a commercial matter.
Teesside stories you may have missed…
🏭 A case against NZT’s carbon capture claims is being heard at the Court of Appeal
🏛️ Middlesbrough’s new planning framework until 2041 is set to be voted on
🌍 This great video asking people in Middlesbrough where they think they are
🧖🏻♂️ A petition has been launched after Hartlepool’s new leisure centre won’t have a sauna or steam room
TVCA chief executive made redundant
Tees Valley Combined Authority has confirmed its chief executive Julie Gilhespie has been made redundant, nearly three months after it was reported she would be leaving her role.
Her departure was unexpectedly announced in December by The Northern Echo, at around the same time Private Eye was asking TVCA’s press office about information it had received on Ms Gilhespie’s future.
However, it’s taken nearly three months for the authority to confirm the corporate restructure, with her role as chief executive of TVCA Group - which is the umbrella term for TVCA itself, along with the South Tees Development Corporation (STDC) and up to thirteen other entities and companies - set to be axed.
Private Eye has reported that Ms Gilhespie will receive a payment of £250,000 compensation for being made redundant, and will receive a year’s worth of pension contributions from TVCA after her departure. When I asked TVCA if this was true they did not respond.
In TVCA’s announcement of Ms Gilhespie’s departure, it lauds her work “at the heart of some of the most significant milestones in the region’s recent history.”
Local media has more or less copy and pasted this section in its reporting, mentioning Gilhespie’s role in “kick-starting the regeneration of the Teesworks site”. Although there’s no mention of her role in overseeing the controversial deal which saw 90% of shares in Teesworks Ltd handed over to Chris Musgrave and Martin Corney which lead to a government review of the whole operation.
Nor was there any mention of the fact that government review was highly critical of Ms Gilhespie for not only failing to declare conflicts of interest, but for failing to even recognise where they existed.
Alas, local coverage also failed to mention how Ms Gilhespie was “at the heart” of setting up a joint venture company to sell electricity to tenants at the Teesworks site with Musgrave and Corney with the same 90-10 equity split in favour of the businessmen. Nor that this company was formed at the same time the government review into that controversial relationship was ongoing.
“Key achievements,” TVCA’s press release says of Gilhespie’s time in her role, “include… the development of Teesworks as a centre for green industry”. Although with BP pulling the rug on its HyGreen project, and questions over the viability of carbon capture, the question of how green Teesworks actually ends up being won’t be answered for a number of years.
Gilhespie will remain in her role until the end of March. Her job will be split in two with TVCA’s Director of Infrastructure Tom Bryant being put in place as interim chief executive of TVCA, and STDC’s chief operating officer John Barnes - who has a long-standing professional relationship with Chris Musgrave - will become chief executive of STDC, pending board approval.
If you have any feedback or tips get in touch at teesside@thelead.uk or via BlueSky.
I’ll be back on Sunday.
Leigh