Pipeline from Immingham to Theddlethorpe aims to "minimise damage to roads"

The company behind a 56km pipeline from Immingham to Theddlethorpe will aim to minimise any damage to Lincolnshire’s roads caused by transporting materials.
The proposed route for the pipeline.The proposed route for the pipeline.
The proposed route for the pipeline.

Bosses behind the Viking Carbon Capture Storage project will also begin talks next year with another major project to store nuclear waste out of the former Conoco Philips Gas Terminal about whether the both schemes will be built together or not.

Lincolnshire County Council’s Planning and Regulation Committee was given an update on the project, previously known as the V Net Zero network, by Paul Davis from Harbour Energy.

Immingham is the largest producer of CO2 in the UK and the new pipeline will link it to Harbour Energy and Conoco Philip’s existing offshore C02 storage facilities. The aim will be to store up to 12 million tonnes of CO2 a year by 2034.

The proposed route for the pipeline.The proposed route for the pipeline.
The proposed route for the pipeline.

Following a previous round of consultation in Spring, the project’s route has been realigned.

In total, 30km will go through East Lindsey, 22km will go through North East Lincolnshire and around 4km will go through North Lincolnshire and and West Lindsey.

Councillors mostly focussed on the post-works restoration of the county, particularly the landscape and the roads.

Councillor Ian Carrington felt there could be a “massive number of very large vehicles moving very large quantities of stuff”.

“This has a horrific impact on our roads,” he said, “We are the highways authority. Will you give an undertaking that any damage to the public highway caused by this scheme will be paid for by yourselves?”

Mr Davis, the Viking CCS Onshore Development Manager, said the company would restore the landscape and had committed to a ten percent increase in biodiversity.

The aim would be to deliver pipes via a running track alongside the pipeline route in order to to minimise damage to roads.

Councillor Tom Ashton asked if the the Viking project would be “incompatible” with Radioactive Waste Management’s plans for a nuclear storage facility at the Theddlethorpe site.

“It’s really important – given the potential national strategic importance of that other project, the capital value to the local economy and the potential lifespan – that if it is possible for these two things not to be mutually exclusive that would be materially significant.”

Mr Davis was “not fully able to answer” and said the separate projects were currently only updating each other for information.

However, he said that early in 2023 they would be doing a joint project looking at whether both could be built.

Councillor Noi Sear, however, indicated she would be happy if the NWS project was given the boot by the Viking CCS.

“If your comment means we don’t have nuclear waste, that’s a bonus in my opinion,” she said.