INEOS to switch Grangemouth to hydrogen in $1.4 billion pursuit of net zero

LONDON (Reuters) - INEOS said on Wednesday it will convert its vast Scottish petrochemicals plant and oil refinery at Grangemouth to run on hydrogen at a cost of more than 1 billion pounds ($1.4 billion) to make it 'net zero' for carbon emissions by 2045.

Britain has a target to reach net zero by 2050 and has significantly reduced emissions from power generation, but has found it harder to cut industry's carbon footprint.

Andrew Gardner, Chairman of INEOS Grangemouth said the company would initially use gas to produce its own hydrogen on site, so-called blue hydrogen, with at least 1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) stored and captured by 2030.

"The next stage would be using green hydrogen," Gardner told Reuters, to bring the entire site to net zero by 2045.

Green hydrogen is produced using renewable power sources such as wind or solar.

Gardner said annual emissions were around 5 million tonnes of CO2 when INEOS took over the site from BP in 2005, but these are now around 3 million tonnes a year and are expected to fall to 1.8 million tonnes by 2030.

INEOS said in July it would work with the Acorn carbon capture and storage project in Scotland, which aims to store CO2 emissions in the North Sea. nL5N2OL11I]

It has also backed hydrogen investment firm HydrogenOne Capital Growth.

($1 = 0.7324 pounds)

(Reporting by Susanna Twidale; Editing by Alexander Smith)