Background

The UK DECC funded FEED studies for two potential CCS projects in the UK as part of a first competition for funding of a full scale demonstration. A key aim of the FEED was thus to assist in selection of a winning project but the participants were also required to narrow the range of projected costs and clearly identify the cost risks and establish upper and lower limits. DECC also had the intention of making results public to enhance learning and information exchange.

Initially 9 consortia entered projects into the competition but only two proceeded into the FEED phase. One of these withdrew before the full FEED was developed so some elements of this FEED are less well developed.

The FEED’s were funded with public money and hence the documentation has been made publically available where it does not include confidential material. It is if considerable worldwide interest to those engaged in the emerging CCS industry. The documents in the public domain can be viewed at: CLICK HERE.

The front end engineering design of a project aims to define all elements required to execute the project so that detailed engineering, procurement and construction can proceed without significant changes, delays or cost overruns. The scope of the FEED documentation usually includes basic specification of the required processes, layout, routing and site locations. It would also usually identify standards to be applied, permits and permissions required along with safety and environmental risks and measures to control these to acceptable levels. It would also set out a preferred contracting and procurement strategy, a project schedule and
develop costs estimates of sufficient accuracy based on these to allow firm investment commitments to be made. If long lead equipment lies on the critical path of the schedule, requisitions for this may also prepared so that procurement can start as soon as the investment decision is made. While some choices may be left to be made during detailed design these should not be of a type which would significantly affect the project within established levels of time, resource and cost contingency. Thus the exact scope and contents of a FEED will vary with the type of project and its context.

Recommendations

• It is proposed that IEAGHG monitors the availability of new FEED material developed during the second UK competition and informs IEAGHG members if it is considered worthwhile to do a further in depth review of such new documentation.