Officials are discussing plans to revive the so-called Gateway project, in which caves southwest of Barrow-in-Furness will be used to contain 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas or hydrogen, reducing the country’s dependence on international markets. The plan was put on the shelf a decade ago when ministers decided to cut gas storage capacity, but last month civil servants met with Stag Energy, the company that is the brainchild of the proposal, to see if it could revive. The talks come as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has pushed up gas and electricity prices, with millions of households now facing rising energy bills and a cost-of-living crisis. George Grant, CEO of Stag, said he had exploratory talks with the Business Department and the Crown Estate – which owns the seabed – about the feasibility of reviving the Gateway program. “The potential for a very large installation is still there and it is definitely on their radar,” he said. “Their main priority at the moment is things that can be done in the next year or two, so it is not top notch, but it goes to the funnel of things that need to be taken into account. “Will they decide to go it alone? I do not know. Are we happy to deal with them? Absolutely.” The Gateway was originally approved by Gordon Brown’s government, but later remained on the shelf under David Cameron when ministers decided to rely primarily on imports rather than storage. The UK’s largest gas storage facility in Rough, off the coast of Yorkshire, was later closed by the owner of British Gas Centrica in 2017. Mr Grant said the abolition of the Gateway followed a failure of a regulatory framework agreement with the government to create a back-up gas market, similar to the electricity ‘capacity market’, which would have rewarded companies for maintaining natural gas. gas in reserve. He said a similar regulatory framework would need to be reconsidered in the future if the Gateway were to be revived, either for gas or for hydrogen fuel, which is expected to replace it in the coming decades. The project was designed to hold 1.5 billion cubic meters of gas, enough for about five days of supply, and would take a decade to build. The new proposals include a gas storage plan initially before the site is reused for hydrogen handling. Ministers want to use hydrogen to power heavy industry and heat homes in the coming decades, with a goal of producing 10 gigawatts by 2030. Gas does not emit greenhouse gases when it burns, unlike fossil fuels.