Water industry pledges to clean up sewage plans

THE LEADING water trade body has played down the role of fines in reforming the industry and tackling sewage spills and poor performance – and has instead argued the focus should be on investment to improve the network.

Water UK outlined to City A.M. that companies had pledged to bring forward £56bn to tackle storm overflows, a persistent environmental menace that has polluted rivers across the UK.

A spokesperson said: “The Environment Agency reports very high levels of compliance at sewage works – 99 per cent last year. So while enforcement is vital if rules are broken, it will only ever be a tiny part of the effort to restore rivers to where they need to be. The vast majority of improvement will come from investment –where we are bringing forward £56bn to accelerate work on storm overflows.”

Its emphasis on investment follows reports from watchdog Ofwat last December that water and wastewater companies are falling behind on their plans to upgrade infrastructure –delaying promised service improvements.

The industry’s regulator revealed 14 companies underspent their budget on improving their water network and eight companies underspent their budget for improving their wastewater network between 2020 and 2022.

Ofwat sets allowances for how much companies can invest over the price control period, to maintain and improve its water network, as part of its price review process which runs from 2020 to 2025.

Affinity Water and Northumbrian Water spent just 47 per cent and 48 per cent of their water enhancement allowance respectively, and Yorkshire Water and South West Water spent just 20 per cent and 39 per cent of their wastewater enhancement allowance respectively.

The main areas of underspend across both categories include drought resilience, improvements to sewage treatment works and reducing spill frequency.

Surfers Against Sewage has urged the government to hold firm with plans to clamp down on underperforming water companies if it wants to end sewage pollution across Britain’s rivers and seas.

The environmental group told City A.M. that Downing Street should not “let polluters off with a slap on the wrist”.

INEOS secures £3.1bn for Europe’s greenest ‘cracker’ power plant

NICHOLAS EARL

THE BELGIAN chemical arm of INEOS has raised £3.1bn (€3.5bn) to build the most environmentally sustainable ‘cracker’ power plant in Europe.

INEOS Olefins Belgium is overseeing Project ONE – a new ethane cracker, which is the largest investment in the European sector for a generation.

The cracker will be located in Antwerp, Belgium and have the lowest carbon footprint in Europe, three times lower than the average European steam cracker, and less than half that of the 10 per cent best performers in Europe.

The €3.5bn fundraise is the largest investment in the European chemical sector for a generation.

Cracking is the industrial process through which molecules are split under the influence of heat, catalysts and solvent – with the new cracker powered by low carbon hydrogen to produce ethylene from ethane.