LIKE many, Straughen is disappointed that the Miller carbon-capture project – which would also have yielded a further 30-40million barrels of oil – was cancelled.
“That, for me, is what’s missing on CCS in the UK. The Government is going to fund a couple of projects, but that’s going to be five years out. We have the producers of CO identified, but technically, economically, it currently doesn’t stack up. So we need to move the ball in both areas. We need to be doing more on the technical challenges … addressing those enhancing, in particular, the transportation and sequestration part is pretty manageable. It’s the capture end that’s the issue.”
Turning within the group, we find Mike Straughen the carbon tzar, even though he admitted that his personal carbon footprint could be smaller.
“We kicked this off a year ago. We’re doing it globally, with a range of businesses heavily involved. It’s throwing up really interesting challenges. Our corporate intent is to actively reduce our carbon footprint.
“The first thing is to measure and identify what the key contributors to carbon are. That’s split into two or three categories … utility costs, commuting and business travel. We haven’t yet got to the point of having measured it and are working on improvements and therefore to define what would be a reasonable target for Wood Group. We’d like to be in a position of having completed our audit by the end of this year and road-tested planned improvements.”
So can the group ever become carbon neutral?
Straughen: “If we can show continual improvement over a number of years, that would be a good place to be.”
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