Mott MacDonald’s East Coast Hydrogen role: routing and repurposing notes for engineers
Reviewed by Joe Ashwell
First reported on New Civil Engineer
30 Second Briefing
Mott MacDonald has been appointed by Northern Gas Networks to deliver front-end engineering design (Feed) for the East Coast Hydrogen transmission and distribution infrastructure in its licence area. The commission will define pipeline routes, pressure regimes and above-ground installations needed to move low-carbon hydrogen at scale through existing and new assets, including tie-ins to industrial clusters on the east coast. For geotechnical and civil teams, early work will focus on corridor selection, crossings of major transport and utility corridors, and assessing repurposing of high-pressure gas pipelines for hydrogen service.
Technical Brief
- Commission scope will include FEED-level definition of new hydrogen transmission mains and distribution reinforcements.
- Mott MacDonald’s remit covers integration of hydrogen infrastructure within Northern Gas Networks’ existing high-pressure grid.
- Work is expected to address conversion sequencing to minimise outages on the operational gas network.
- FEED will need to consider tie-in designs at multiple pressure tiers and valve compound layouts.
- Geotechnical inputs will focus on constructability of long linear corridors, including trenching, HDD and microtunnelling options.
- Asset repurposing studies will require fracture control, fatigue and hydrogen embrittlement assessments of legacy steel pipelines.
- For similar UK hydrogen backbone schemes, FEED outcomes typically drive subsequent capex sanction and phased construction scheduling.
Our Take
Mott MacDonald’s role on East Coast Hydrogen comes as our database shows the firm simultaneously winning large multidisciplinary frameworks such as Iarnród Éireann’s €600M consultancy panel, signalling that hydrogen transmission design will be drawing on teams already scaled for complex rail and highway corridors.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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