A deep whirring sound punctures the calm of the East Yorkshire coastline as a huge engine powers up and prepares to suck thousands of cubic metres of gas from deep beneath the North Sea.
It is the first time that stored gas from Rough, a vast underground cavern, has been pumped into the grid since 2017. Then, the British Gas owner, Centrica, deemed its storage function "uneconomical", and the government ignored calls to step in. Russia's invasion of Ukraine and its throttling of Europe's gas supply has changed all that, and has allowed the 37-yearold storage facility to make an unlikely comeback.
"I promise this wasn't staged," says O'Shea, who is standing on a platform 30 metres above the maze of metalwork that is Easington gas terminal, which sucks the gas from Rough.
It is six months since the then business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, asked whether Centrica could reopen Europe's largest storage facility. The site - which has only been used to produce local gas for the last five years - is now 20% full, enough to heat about 1m homes. Its reopening means Britain now stores nine days' worth of gas, up from six, but still the lowest in Europe. Rough has been called into action because of Dunkelflaute conditions blanketing northern Europe: barely any wind or solar power available to generate electricity on a grey, still day. These conditions have thwarted O'Shea's efforts to fly by helicopter to the Rough platform, 18 miles offshore.
He recounts trips offshore in early roles at the oil company Shell, mistaking a tuna fish for a shark on a rig off Nigeria. He is dressed in a trademark bright blue hoodie, with "join our Centrica pathway" on the front and "#netzerobattalion" on the back.
Blink and you'd miss the millionaire chief executive with a role in nearly every evolving energy story this week (see: costly bills, Sizewell C, Bulb's takeover, windfall taxes, power cut policies).
This story is from the December 01, 2022 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the December 01, 2022 edition of The Guardian.
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