Gas reserves would be stored in a vast salt cavern under the Irish Sea under proposals discussed by ministers as they scramble to bolster Britain’s energy security in the face of Russian aggression.

Officials are discussing plans to revive the so-called Gateway project in which caves south-west of Barrow-in-Furness would be used to contain 1.5bn cubic metres of natural gas or hydrogen, reducing the country’s dependence on international markets.

The scheme was shelved a decade ago when ministers decided to scale back gas storage capacity, but in the past month civil servants have met with Stag Energy, the company masterminding the proposal, to see if it can be revived. 

The talks come after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent gas and electricity prices soaring, with millions of households now facing rising energy bills and a cost-of-living crisis.

George Grant, Stag’s chief executive, said he had held exploratory talks with the Business Department and the Crown Estate – which owns the seabed – about the feasibility of reviving the Gateway scheme. 

“The potential for a very large facility is absolutely still there and it is certainly 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 tier, but it is going in the hopper of things to be considered.

“Will they decide to move forward with it? I don’t know. Are we happy to engage with them? Absolutely.”

Gateway was originally approved by Gordon Brown’s government but was later shelved under David Cameron when ministers decided to primarily rely on imports instead of storage. 

The UK’s biggest gas storage facility at Rough, off the Yorkshire coast, was later closed by British Gas owner Centrica in 2017.

Mr Grant said the shelving of Gateway followed a failure to agree a regulatory framework with the Government to create a backup gas market, similar to the electricity “capacity market”, which would have financially rewarded companies for holding gas in reserve. 

He said a similar regulatory framework would need to be revisited in future if Gateway was to be revived, whether for natural gas or the hydrogen fuel which is expected to replace it in coming decades. 

The project was designed to hold 1.5bn cubic metres of natural gas, enough for about five days of supply, and would take a decade to build. 

The new proposals include a plan to store natural gas initially before the site is repurposed to handle hydrogen instead. 

Ministers want to use hydrogen to power heavy industry and heat homes in coming decades, with a target for 10 gigawatts of production by 2030. The gas does not generate greenhouse emissions when burned, unlike fossil fuels.