Australia has announced 10 new areas across seven basins in federal waters will be opened to carbon capture and storage (CCS) exploration as the government repositions itself in favour of the abatement technology.
The sites include key oil and gas producing regions offshore the states of Western Australia, Victoria and Tasmania that already host exploration and production activity. The areas have been chosen for their geology and carbon dioxide (CO2) storage potential, while minimising impacts to other marine users and the environment.
"Both (Australia's) Climate Change Authority and the International Energy Agency have said CCS will be an important technology to help the world achieve its climate goals," Australian resources minister Madeleine King said on 29 August.
Bidding for the acreage closes on 28 November.
CCS technology has been backed by Australia's upstream gas firms such as independent Santos, which is proposing to store 10mn t/yr of CO2 at its Bayu-Undan project in the Timor Sea. Santos' 1.7mn t/yr Moomba CCS project in the onshore Cooper basin in South Australia is targeting its first injection in early 2024.
Chevron's Gorgon CCS has sequestered more than 8mn t of CO2 equivalent since opening in 2019 but was operating at just a third of its nameplate 4mn t/yr capacity, Chevron said in May,
Australia's national science agency the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation has recommended using CO2 stored to offset emissions from new gas projects in the north of the country to make certain e-fuels and other low-carbon products.
Australia allocated A$12mn ($7.8mn) in its 2023-24 federal budget to review the environmental management regime and examine ways to improve regulations to support offshore CCS projects.
The federal government is in the process of passing laws to ratify the 2009 London Protocol amendment, which allows for cross-border imports of CO2 for long-term undersea storage. The amendments to the Environment Protection (Sea Dumping) Act 1981 are currently before the nation's upper house of parliament, the Senate, after being passed in the lower house on 3 August.
