Heidelberg Materials has hailed the “pace of construction” after more than 600 piles were installed for a carbon-capture facility at a cement works in north Wales.
The company said an average of 80 workers were on the Padeswood site each day as Australian civils firm Worley and Japanese technology giant Mitsubishi Heavy Industries push on with the project.
More than 60,000t of aggregate has been used to establish the working areas, with piles placed by two rigs ahead of building a retaining wall.
Other completed groundwork includes the installation of newt and security fencing, the diversion of cables and removal of 25,000t of topsoil.
The concrete used to construct the carbon capture facility includes evoZero “near-zero” cement, which is produced using carbon capture and storage (CCS) at Heidelberg’s Brevik plant in Norway.
“We are delighted with the pace of construction of our Padeswood CCS project and it is great to watch as our plans turn into reality,” said Heidelberg Materials UK chief executive Simon Willis.
“We are using evoZero cement wherever possible to lower the carbon impact of the project. There is a symmetry to using a product produced using CCS to help build the infrastructure for another.”
While carbon-capture technology at the Brevik plant is designed to capture around half of the facility’s carbon emissions, the asset being installed at Padeswood aims to capture some 95%, estimated at up to 800,000t per year.
Padeswood cement works near Mold in Flintshire opened in 1949 as part of Britain’s post-war rebuild.
The UK government last year granted consent for a 55km long pipeline to transport captured carbon across Humber and Lincolnshire. The Viking CCS pipeline will take captured carbon from the Immingham industrial area on the River Humber and transport it to facilities at the site of the former Theddlethorpe Gas Terminal (TGT).
Meanwhile, Northern Endurance Partnership’s onshore CO2 gathering system will provide transportation and storage infrastructure for Teesside-based carbon capture projects.