The owner of British Gas is moving ahead with plans to decommission a huge gas storage facility as part of a multi-billion-pound overhaul of the UK's energy infrastructure.

A segment of Centrica's Rough platform, which stores natural gas under the North Sea 18 miles off the coast of Yorkshire, will start to be dismantled nearly four decades after it was first opened in 1985.

The Rough gas field, upon which the facility sits, was initially discovered in the late 1960s and taken over by British Gas for storage in 1980.

It was initially earmarked for closure in 2017 but was partially reopened in the autumn of 2022 when a spike in global energy prices sparked fears that the UK could run short of fuel to power its electricity grid.

Rough's 'Alpha' site, one of two which make up the facility, has been shut down since 2019 and will now be decommissioned as part of an overhaul of the project.

It comes as Centrica, British Gas's parent company, pushes ahead with plans for a £2billion investment into the site which will see a new platform built in the North Sea.

Centrica boss Chris O'Shea said previously that the investment plan is aiming to 'create the biggest gas storage facility in the world'.

This would involve a capacity of around 200billion cubic feet of gas, along with up to 5,000 jobs. He has also said that in the future the site could be used to store hydrogen, which is widely seen as being a more environmentally-friendly energy source than natural gas.

A Centrica spokesman said: 'The existing Rough platform is now almost 40 years old and as part of our regulatory requirements we need to start the decommissioning process.'

They added: 'Our plans for Rough remain unchanged. Subject to securing a cap and floor model for the redeveloped asset we still plan to invest up to £2billion in converting Rough to the world's largest hydrogen storage facility.

'This investment, if unlocked with the new regulatory model, would see a new platform built to deliver on our ambitions.'