UK National Wealth Fund makes GBP 28.6 million equity investment in Peak Cluster carbon capture project

Mechanism

The National Wealth Fund (NWF), the UK's state-owned investment bank, took a GBP 28.6 million equity stake in Peak Cluster, an industrial decarbonisation project centred on a CO2-transport pipeline linking cement and lime plants operated by Holcim, Tarmac, Breedon and SigmaRoc across Derbyshire, Staffordshire and North West England to the Morecambe Net Zero (MNZ) offshore CO2 storage site in the Irish Sea, operated with Spirit Energy. The NWF stake is structured to crowd in a further GBP 31 million from the private partners, bringing total project equity to GBP 59.6 million — the NWF's first carbon-capture investment since Chancellor Rachel Reeves designated CCUS a priority deployment sector for the Fund's additional GBP 5.8 billion capital allocation.

Rationale

Peak Cluster is projected to decarbonise around 40% of the UK's cement and lime industry, an energy- and emissions-intensive sector for which few low-carbon production alternatives exist at scale, by capturing process and combustion CO2 and transporting it via pipeline to permanent offshore storage. HM Treasury frames the investment as securing existing industrial jobs (2,000+) while creating new manufacturing (~300) and temporary construction (~1,200) roles, with a combined 13,000-job impact once linked to the Morecambe Net Zero storage project, and preventing an estimated 3 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.