COP26 will focus on the global imperative that is climate change. Setting targets is fine, but how will they be achieved?
The collective expertise, innovation and skills built up in oil and gas during the last 60 years across operators, supply chain, universities, agencies and other partners means Aberdeen is uniquely placed to be at the heart of the energy transition. What evidence is there for these claims?
l The UK Government North Sea Transition Deal has Aberdeen front and centre of its ambition to harness the expertise of the oil and gas sector and anchor it to the UK to ensure energy security while driving the necessary change.
l For Europe to reach climate neutrality by 2050, it will require offshore wind capacity to increase from 23 GW today to up to 450 GW, with half of this capacity to be installed in the North Sea. Equinor pioneered the world’s first floating wind farm off the coast of Peterhead and if the joint BP and EnBW ScotWind bid is successful, Aberdeen will become BP’s global offshore wind O&M centre of excellence.
l Aberdeen has a vision to be a world leading hydrogen city and develop Scotland’s first commercially scalable, investable, hydrogen production and distribution facility.
l The Aberdeen Energy Transition Zone will be built close to the newly constructed Aberdeen South Harbour and is expected to directly support 2,500 green jobs, plus a further 10,000 transition-related jobs by 2030.
l By making use of oil and gas pipelines that are already in place – offshore geology that is ideal for permanently storing carbon dioxide – the Acorn project will be a vital catalyst for the next phase of the UK’s journey to net zero. And it has the potential to deliver over 20% of UK’s blue hydrogen target by 2030.
l In fact, the joint venture between Storegga and Canadian company Carbon Engineering, located at St Fergus, seeks to remove up to one million tonnes of CO2 every year through Direct Air Capture (DAC). It could be the largest DAC facility in Europe and depending on the final configuration, potentially the biggest in the world.
All of this and more is part of a projected £170+ billion investment in capital and operating activities in the UK offshore energy sector between 2021-2030, much of it located in this region or powered by companies and people based here.
A pretty compelling case then but we consistently hear the push back that this activity will not support the volume of high value jobs sustained by oil and gas.
Not so, according to the UK Offshore Energy Workforce Transferability Review undertaken by Robert Gordon University which forecast that around 200,000 people will be required by 2030 to underpin the developing offshore wind, hydrogen, CCUS as well as the vital ongoing oil and gas activities in the UK offshore energy sector. This compares to around 160,000 people directly and indirectly employed in the UK offshore energy sector in 2021.
And it’s fascinating to observe the shift in focus of these roles. Currently 80% are engaged in traditional oil and gas but within ten years 65% of them will be in low carbon energy.
But as we embark on this exciting and vital journey, we must not forget that we are in transition; with a responsibility to maintain our country’s energy security. Ensuring our homes are warm, lights on, the goods we all consume coming off production lines and keeping our country moving.
Aberdeen. A climate positive place. A net exporter of net zero.
Robert Borthwick is chief executive of Aberdeen & Grampian Chamber of Commerce.
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