How UK Suppliers Get Into the Carbon Capture Supply Chain

UK suppliers get into carbon capture work through the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors and their package teams on the two Track-1 clusters. You find the person who owns the package you can deliver and start talking to them before that package is placed. If you wait for a public tender notice, the way you would for a council contract, you usually hear about the package after someone else has won it.

The project companies own the plants. They set the rules on safety, quality and local content. Steel, cable, scaffolding, inspection and site services are usually ordered further down, by a package manager or a procurement lead inside an EPC contractor.

This article is written for UK fabricators, civils firms, electrical contractors, inspection companies and site service businesses. You already work on process plants, and you want carbon capture to be your next sector.

Who sits where between the plant owner and your order?

In commercial terms, the UK carbon capture supply chain is a few very large orders that split into hundreds of smaller ones.

At the top are the project companies: the capture plants, and the transport and storage networks that carry CO2 offshore. They hire EPC contractors to design, buy and build.

Each EPC divides its scope into packages, and each package has its own manager, budget, schedule and approved supplier list. Below the packages sit the subcontractors and equipment vendors. Below them sit the sub-suppliers who feed them.

The government's UK CCUS collection page says Track-1 covers the first two clusters: the East Coast Cluster around Teesside, and HyNet in North West England and North Wales. The same page estimates the sector could produce £4-5 billion of GVA a year and back around 50,000 jobs during the 2030s.

Those national numbers fill the trade press. For a supplier, the more useful fact is how small the buying side is. A handful of project companies and the contractors working for them fit on a single page.

In a market that small, I stop planning for width and plan for depth instead: more people per company, a longer sequence, more patience. I explain the reasoning in my post on choosing a market first.

Which UK carbon capture projects should suppliers target first?

Start with the anchor projects. The government chose them to go first, so their contractors are the first large buyers in each cluster.

The anchor names come from the government's Track-1 accounting officer assessment. It splits the scope into transport and storage networks and the capture projects that use them. That list also includes a hydrogen production plant in HyNet. Hydrogen production is a separate supplier story, so I keep this to capture, transport and storage.

The NZT description comes from the Tees Valley Combined Authority's CCUS page. It puts the project at £1.5 billion, with as many as 4,000 construction jobs.

The money and the dates. The collection page records £21.7 billion in government funding for the first UK CCUS projects. The October 2024 announcement named the Teesside and Merseyside sites and expected around £8 billion of private investment. On Teesside, NZT and NEP said in July 2024 that, after a final investment decision, they were targeting the start of commercial operations from 2027.

The scale on Teesside. The Tees Valley Combined Authority's Net Zero Teesside page describes the East Coast Cluster as NZT, NEP and Zero Carbon Humber working together. From 2030 it aims to ship 20 million tonnes or more of CO2 a year to storage under the North Sea.

The expansion path. The accounting officer assessment expects more projects to connect to both clusters after the first networks are built. On Teesside that has already started.

DESNZ ran an updated selection process for projects that want to join the Teesside network and use the spare capacity at the Endurance offshore store. Expressions of interest closed on 10 March 2026 and applications on 10 April 2026. Every applicant had to submit a supply chain map.

Each project that comes out of those processes becomes another project company with its own contractors. It has also already had to put its supply chain on paper.

The decision rule is simple. If you can deliver on Teesside, start with NZT and NEP. If your yard or crews are in the North West or North Wales, start with HyNet.

Who actually buys on UK carbon capture projects?

In July 2024, Net Zero Teesside and the Northern Endurance Partnership hosted more than 250 supply chain businesses. The event covered about £4 billion of EPC contracts. Suppliers met nine specialist contractors, among them Technip Energies, Balfour Beatty, Costain, Saipem, TechnipFMC and Genesis.

Contractors were in the room because most supplier decisions are made inside their teams.

For most supplier scopes, the order is signed in rows two and three. The local content lead at the project company is worth knowing. That person can tell you who owns a package and how the project reports UK content. The purchase order still comes from the package team.

When suppliers ask me who belongs on the list, I send them back to their past projects to find out who actually decided.

For a process plant supplier, that person is usually a buyer or a package manager at a main contractor, well below the board.

Before anything goes out, check each row against the titles that really sign.

Which packages can local UK suppliers win?

Here is where a UK supplier can realistically fit. Read the third column honestly, because "yes" usually means a subcontract or a sub-supply order, not a direct contract with the project company.

The last row matters if you sell plant equipment. Columns, heat exchangers and compressors are usually bought through the EPC's equipment packages from specialist vendors with reference plants. A smaller UK firm gets into that work through those vendors, with fabrication, supports, coatings or inspection. So the equipment vendor's procurement team belongs on your list too.

Geography sorts the rest. Teesside firms sit next to NZT and NEP. Humber firms connect through Zero Carbon Humber's part in the East Coast Cluster. North West and North Wales firms sit inside HyNet.

In my campaigns we target a local audience first whenever we can, because a conversation opens far more easily when the buyer knows your yard is down the road. Then I look at who the supplier already works for on refineries, chemical plants or power stations, and find the carbon capture packages run by the same contractors or by firms just like them.

How does supplier engagement work in Teesside?

On Teesside, the public way in has mostly been events run by the project and the combined authority.

In April 2022, the Tees Valley Combined Authority reported more than 700 delegates at a webinar on how businesses could take part in the bp-led Net Zero Teesside Power project. It included presentations and a Q&A. The mayor said local firms in construction, engineering, digital and professional services could benefit. Two years later came the July 2024 session with the nine contractors.

The combined authority's CCUS page also lists other local emitters, including BOC Carbon Capture, Norsea Carbon Capture and CF Fertilisers. Write those names down. Any of them that builds capture plant becomes a buyer with its own contractors.

What an event gives you: names, the way the scope is split into packages, and a feel for timing. It does not give you an order. Signing up for updates or registering interest puts your company in a file. The package manager still invites the suppliers they already know and trust.

So use each event as the start of a list. Ask every contractor how it prequalifies suppliers and which portal or questionnaire it uses, and fill that in the same week. Within a few days, connect on LinkedIn with every package person you met. Then add the ones from the same teams who were not in the room.

When should suppliers start outreach?

Before the package you want is placed. Once it is placed, your target becomes the firm that won it.

The timeline shows why. In July 2024, the NZT event page said final contract awards still needed regulatory clearance and a positive final investment decision (FID). Those awards follow the decision, so a supplier who first hears about a project once its main EPC contracts are signed is already late for them.

The industry's own guidance pushes for early contact. The Carbon Capture and Storage Association's supply chain strategy sets a target of 50% UK content. It wants developers and contractors to plan and talk to suppliers early and keep doing so through procurement.

Most of the anchor projects are already past the investment decision. The CCUS collection page records that NZT and the East Coast Cluster transport and storage network reached financial close on 10 December 2024, and the HyNet transport and storage network on 24 April 2025. On those projects the main packages are past the open stage, so the doors now are sub-packages, scope changes, later phases, commissioning and operations. The expansion projects are a step earlier. Their applicants had to submit a supply chain map by April 2026, so each of them has already thought about who supplies what.

Build the outreach for a long cycle. Lead with a LinkedIn connection and let the email follow it. One or two messages will not reach a package manager who lives on site.

Replies and first calls can come quickly. The purchase order follows the project schedule, which can be months away. Decisions in heavy industry move slowly, and some pipelines are only starting when the campaign looks finished. Keep the sequence running through that gap. The detail of how the two channels fit together is in the follow-up sequence I run across LinkedIn and email.

What should you put in the first outbound message?

Ask for the meeting and keep the service pitch out of it. A first message that lists everything you do gets skimmed and archived.

The evidence belongs in the first message, not in an attachment: one similar job, the package you fit, the qualification the buyer will ask about, and how close you are to site. Keep it short and written like a person. Templates that sound machine-made get ignored.

Here is a made-up example for a Teesside fabricator writing to a package manager at an EPC contractor:

Subject: Pipe supports for the NZT piping package

Hi James, I saw you run the piping package on Net Zero Teesside. We fabricate pipe supports and spools for process plants in Stockton, most recently for a chemical site on the Tees, and our crew can be on your site within the hour. Could we take 15 minutes next week to see whether we fit your approved list for supports?

That is about 60 words. It names the package, shows one relevant job, signals local presence and asks for one small thing. For more on the structure, see what I cut from cold emails and what survives.

Does a contractor on a project this size ever answer a stranger? Some do. Saipem was one of the nine contractors at the 2024 NZT and NEP supplier event, and in my experience contractors of that size reply when the message names the package and asks for one small thing.

What are the biggest mistakes UK suppliers make?

Writing to the board. A note to the chief executive of a project company feels bold. It almost never reaches the person choosing a scaffolding subcontractor, and at best it gets forwarded without context.

Using generic titles. A list built on "manager" pulls in office managers, account managers and HR managers. I strip out generic titles like assistant, associate and plain manager. Then I keep the titles that sign orders in this niche, such as package manager, procurement manager, subcontracts manager and buyer.

Writing to everyone. A draft aimed at "the energy sector" reaches nobody in particular. One cluster, one package type, one kind of buyer gives you a message the reader recognizes as theirs.

Treating visibility as a sales plan. Posts, a stand at a regional show and a supplier database entry help people recognize you. They support outreach and cannot replace it. The work still comes from direct conversations with the people who place orders.

How can a supplier turn this into a 30 day plan?

1. Pick one offer and one audience. Choose one package type and one cluster, and stay with it for the next 12 months.
2. Find your proof. Pull your last process plant jobs, note who signed each order, and write one line per job with the result.
3. List the companies. Start from the anchor projects and the contractors that hold their main packages (begin with the nine from the 2024 event and confirm who won what), then the larger subcontractors and the equipment vendors you could supply. Add the contractors you already work for elsewhere.
4. Find the people. For each company, find every package, procurement and subcontracts person tied to your scope. Use Sales Navigator plus a second data tool, and never a scraped list.
5. Verify everything. Check every email address before sending.
6. Fix what they will audit. Update the LinkedIn profiles of whoever sends, and put one carbon capture or process plant case study on your website.
7. Start the sequence. LinkedIn first, email behind it, and keep it running past the first quiet month.
8. Test and adjust. Try two angles, for example local presence against a similar past job, and keep the one that gets more conversations.

If you are a UK supplier trying to get in front of the carbon capture packages, we can talk through your first message on a 30-minute call.