Over $1bn for Gorgon carbon storage

Developers of the Gorgon gas project are looking to invest more than $1 billion on carbon capture and storage designed to reduce the project's emissions by up to 40 per cent.

In what would be the world's largest carbon capture and storage project, the Gorgon CO2 capture and storage project will look to lock up more than 120 million tonnes of CO2 over the life of the project.

If successful, the technology would reduce the LNG project's CO2 emissions from 9.5mt per year to 3.5mt per year.

The gas will be stored about 2.5 kilometres underground on Barrow Island.

Over $100 million has been spent on the project to date.

Speaking at a CO2CRC/CSIRO seminar today, Chevron Australia's senior adviser for climate change policy John Torkington said the CO2 capture and storage project was more effective and less expensive way of abating project's CO2 emissions compared with other abatement options.

The project has undergone a series of technical appraisals to test the viability of the reservoir for CO2 injection and storage; phases one and two were completed by Curtin University in 2003 and 2004, and the CO2CRC Technologies Pty Ltd, commissioned by the Department of Industry and Resources, undertook phase three.

"Were confident we've got a good location that's got a high degree of containment certainty," Mr Torkington said.

The Gorgon project, valued in the tens of billions of dollars, will produce 15 million tonnes of LNG a year when fully operational.

Chevron owns half of the project, with joint venture partners Exxon Mobil and Shell each controlling a 25 per cent stake.

Full media release below.

Capturing and storing CO2 deep underground

The release of the Garnaut Review and the government's Green Paper have highlighted the need for further research into safe and economical technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, such as carbon dioxide (CO2) capture and storage.

CSIRO and the CRC for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (CO2CRC) hosted a seminar today on the latest research and technology underpinning carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS). The seminar, held at the Australian Resources Research Centre in Perth, was officially opened by the Western Australian Minister for Energy; Resources; Industry and Enterprise, The Hon. Francis Logan.

Experts from government, industry, universities and research organisations attended the Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage seminar to discuss developments in CCS technologies to lower Australia's emissions footprint.

"Major cuts to greenhouse gas emissions could be achieved by the storage of carbon dioxide deep underground whilst supporting Australia's energy intensive industries and continuing the viability of access to cheaper power from fossil fuels," Minister Logan said.

CSIRO technologies for carbon capture and storage are delivered through CSIRO's Energy Transformed Flagship. According to CSIRO Petroleum Resources Deputy Chief Dr David Whitford, gas technologies used for decades in the petroleum industry have the potential to play a key role in CO2 storage.

"As a major contributor to CO2CRC, CSIRO's expertise is being used to model potential storage sites as well as to predict the fate of injected carbon dioxide underground and assess the technical and environmental feasibility of the geological carbon dioxide storage," Dr Whitford said.

"Western Australia is likely to lead the application of commercial scale geological carbon dioxide storage over the next decade as a consequence of the growing liquid natural gas (LNG) export industry."

The seminar showcased the recently launched CO2CRC Otway Project, Australia's first geological carbon dioxide storage demonstration in Victoria's Otway Basin, where up to 100,000 tonnes of CO2 is planned to be injected two kilometres underground. The project is one of the largest and most comprehensive geological storage projects in the world, putting Australia at the global forefront of CCS research, development and deployment. Monitoring and verification of the injected CO2 in the trial aims to demonstrate it can be stored safely in rocks deep in the subsurface and be effective in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Also in Victoria, CSIRO recently announced the first Australian capture of CO2 from power station flue gases. CSIRO's Energy Transformed Flagship is at the leading edge of developing post combustion capture technologies that can be fitted to new or existing coal-fired power stations and has projects in Victoria, the NSW Central Coast and Beijing, with a further project to be announced for Queensland.