A trade pact involving the UK and Texas has been signed and the purpose of this trade pact is to aim at boosting how much cooperation in shared areas of expertise is occurring. Some of these areas that are being placed under consideration are the clean energy and CCUS industries.

There are currently several barriers which prevent the UK and Texas from easily working together and so the creation of this pact has been done to help the countries work together faster, easier and cheaper. This pact will make this possible through tackling trade barriers, growing investment and finally driving forwards commerce between the UK and Texas.

There is a large amount of interest around the UK and Texas collaborating, as Texas has the second largest US state economy. The economy reportedly had a GDP of £1.9 trillion in 2022, which is larger than Italy and this makes the country currently the UK’s most economically significant trade pact with a US state.

Whilst the trade pact is beneficial in this way, it is also beneficial in other ways, as the UK is Texas’ 8th largest international goods export market. The total trade in goods was reported as already worth £14.7 billion in 2023. Furthermore, it was stated that the most common products being exported to Texas were items such as, nuclear equipment, aircraft and pharmaceutical products.

Therefore, as both countries benefit a lot from their partnership, this arrangement which was recently created has been specifically targeted at sectors in which the UK and Texas have shared expertise in the past. These previous projects include things such as new energy solutions, which include hydrogen and carbon capture, life sciences, utilisation and storage and finally professional business services.

CEO of the Carbon Capture and Storage Association, Ruth Herbert, commented, “Today’s announcement from Government of a UK-Texas pact is key in ensuring global cooperation and sharing of expertise on net zero. Deploying carbon capture and storage (CCUS) globally is critical in achieving net zero, so we welcome greater cooperation with a major partner in this sector. The UK’s history of offshore expertise and engineering services is vital to the successful deployment of CCUS and is an advantage for our country in attracting international investment – which will protect 77,000 existing jobs and create 70,000 new jobs. If CCUS is deployed promptly in the UK, it can unlock £30 billion of inward investment from industry by 2030.”