Contractors could be waiting another year for the chance to win work on the £1.5 billion Kingsnorth power station in Kent.
Energy giant Eon this week confirmed it would not tender contracts until the completion of the ongoing carbon capture and storage consultation – which is now expected to be dragged out for many months.
Climate change secretary Ed Miliband revealed plans to undertake a separate consultation into coal fired power stations, and it is understood that a decision will not be made on CCS until this new consultation is completed.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change said no date had yet been set as to when the coal consultation would begin or end.
And Eon this week said it could not move any further in discussions with contractors until CCS – an environment-friendly but difficult to implement energy creation method – was given the green light.
Sources told Construction News: “That could be six months, it could be a year.”
Laing O’Rourke, Morgan Est, Balfour Beatty, Kier, Bam Nuttall and a Costain/Hochtief joint venture are all bidding for the Kingsnorth work, which has been divided into four packages – piling, enabling works, cooling water system civils works and the ‘power island’ (main building).
One contractor said: “It’s just a waiting game at the end of the day, and we’ll keep waiting until we’re told otherwise. It’s not a time when we can be picky about what jobs we go for.”
Another disgruntled contractor added: “The issue is really that CCS is not proven and nobody knows when the Government will make up their minds. We don’t expect it to be imminent.”
Eon last week called for the Government’s forthcoming coal consultation to identify sufficient incentives for companies to develop carbon capture and storage.
UK chief executive Paul Golby said: “We hope that this consultation will lead to an effective fossil fuel policy that removes the existing financial penalty for deploying CCS.”
Eon has already started field work to identify potential carbon dioxide pipeline routes in Kent.
The survey work aims to find the best locations for the pipelines that could eventually be used to carry captured CO2 from the proposed coal units at Kingsnorth to North Sea gas fields for storage.
Energy giant Eon this week confirmed it would not tender contracts until the completion of the ongoing carbon capture and storage consultation – which is now expected to be dragged out for many months.
Climate change secretary Ed Miliband revealed plans to undertake a separate consultation into coal fired power stations, and it is understood that a decision will not be made on CCS until this new consultation is completed.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change said no date had yet been set as to when the coal consultation would begin or end.
And Eon this week said it could not move any further in discussions with contractors until CCS – an environment-friendly but difficult to implement energy creation method – was given the green light.
Sources told Construction News: “That could be six months, it could be a year.”
Laing O’Rourke, Morgan Est, Balfour Beatty, Kier, Bam Nuttall and a Costain/Hochtief joint venture are all bidding for the Kingsnorth work, which has been divided into four packages – piling, enabling works, cooling water system civils works and the ‘power island’ (main building).
One contractor said: “It’s just a waiting game at the end of the day, and we’ll keep waiting until we’re told otherwise. It’s not a time when we can be picky about what jobs we go for.”
Another disgruntled contractor added: “The issue is really that CCS is not proven and nobody knows when the Government will make up their minds. We don’t expect it to be imminent.”
Eon last week called for the Government’s forthcoming coal consultation to identify sufficient incentives for companies to develop carbon capture and storage.
UK chief executive Paul Golby said: “We hope that this consultation will lead to an effective fossil fuel policy that removes the existing financial penalty for deploying CCS.”
Eon has already started field work to identify potential carbon dioxide pipeline routes in Kent.
The survey work aims to find the best locations for the pipelines that could eventually be used to carry captured CO2 from the proposed coal units at Kingsnorth to North Sea gas fields for storage.
Source: The New Civil Engineer
No comments:
Post a Comment