Hydrogen Fuel Switch Hull
During 2025, INEOS implemented a major £30m investment at its Hull manufacturing site at Saltend, to convert key plant assets to operate on hydrogen instead of natural gas.
The site has been able to use decades of experience of safely handling and combusting hydrogen, which represents a transformational step in achieving its decarbonisation goals.
This existing experience has avoided several years of engineering studies and site-specific innovation that would otherwise be needed.
Many contemporary decarbonisation projects focus upon Scope 2 (power supply) and Scope 3 (value chain) emissions; however, this project is a Scope 1 emissions reduction scheme of the type that industry needs to make to ensure genuine reductions in CO2 emissions. At maximum operating capacity, the fuel switch delivers a 75% reduction in site CO2 emissions. This reduction has been achieved by eliminating natural gas previously used for energy production and replacing it with hydrogen. As a result, site natural gas demand has reduced by approximately 33%, with the remaining natural gas consumption associated with raw material requirements and not fuel.
To put the emissions reduction into context, the CO2 savings associated with this fuel switch are the equivalent of taking approximately 160,000 petrol cars off the road
Given the hydrogen is a by-product of the site’s manufacturing processes and the carbon within the feedstock gas is captured in chemical products, the hydrogen itself has a very low product carbon footprint.
INEOS views this project as an intelligent and efficient use of existing resources and believes this is a model that can be replicated across the wider industry.
In addition, this fuel switch represents a significant milestone in INEOS’ decarbonisation pathway and demonstrates progress towards its net-zero ambitions by 2050.
This investment is another step in our plans to supply the UK and European markets with highly reliable and low carbon products.