Image Caption: Christine Watts, ABP Business Development Manager, CCS
Associated British Ports (ABP), the UK’s largest and best-connected ports operator, is pleased to announce the appointment of Christine Watts as its new Business Development Manager, focusing on developing carbon capture and storage (CCS) value chains and transport solutions.
Prior to joining ABP, Christine served as a Lead Commercial Advisor at Neptune Energy where she developed non-pipeline transportation (NPT) solutions for CO2 and opportunities for offshore green hydrogen production via Integrated Energy Hubs. She also has significant experience in commercial and joint venture, project and change management.
Reflecting on her appointment, Christine, said: “I very much look forward to diving into the world of ports and using my customer-side experience to provide our partners with the tailored services and insights they need to thrive.”
“There is so much potential to create value in the UK carbon capture and storage market. CO2 shipping will help accelerate industrial decarbonisation because not every emitter is at the end of a pipeline.”
As the UK’s largest ports group, ABP provides strategic locations at the heart of the UK’s largest industrial hubs, as well as access to an industrial ecosystem including customers, suppliers and leading energy and logistics infrastructure, project development expertise and access to overseas markets and supply chains via world-class port infrastructure.
Ralph Windeatt, Group Head of Business Development, commented: “I’m delighted to welcome Christine to the team at such an exciting time – over the next decade we look forward to seeing the development of both domestic and cross border CO2 shipping to support the widespread deployment of carbon capture and storage solutions, with ports at the heart of this transition.
“We are very well placed to build on the unique opportunity to work with businesses in this sector, so that together we can deliver large-scale investment, drive economic growth and create good quality jobs, which will bring prosperity to regional communities across the UK.”
ABP’s commitment to sustainability is reflected in its sustainability strategy, ‘Ready for Tomorrow’, which sets out the company’s plans to invest £2 billion in decarbonising its own operations by 2040 as well as enabling the wider UK energy transition through large-scale clean energy infrastructure projects.
The Viking CCS project on the Humber is a salient example of a large-scale energy project, with capability to store up to 10 million tonnes of CO2 per year by 2030, rising to 15 million tonnes per year by 2035. This will bring significant benefits to the local community and the UK overall, including the potential creation of up to 10,000 new, good quality jobs during construction and a contribution of £4 billion of GVA to the economy.
ABP has already announced an exclusive commercial partnership to collaborate with Viking CCS, bp and the London-based recycling and waste management company Cory Group (Cory), to enable the transport and storage of shipped CO2 emissions from Cory’s energy from waste (EfW) facilities.
In the summer of 2024, ABP joined forces with Plug and Play Tech Center to announce the launch of its Energy Ventures Accelerator, a programme aimed at startups, innovators and investors tackling challenges in floating offshore wind, industrial decarbonisation, low carbon fuels or CCS. The programme is currently open for applications and particularly welcomes submissions from women, ethnic minority people and other underrepresented groups.
Business interested in finding out more about how ABP can help support them through facilitating easier access to strategic locations and partnerships can get in touch with Christine on LinkedIn, here.
