Santos, BP sign agreement for CCS project at Moomba

Santos Ltd. has signed a non-binding agreement with BP that could result in BP investing $20 million (Aus.) in support of Santos’ carbon capture and storage (CCS) project at Moomba in South Australia.

The agreement is subject to finalization of terms and a final investment decision for the project expected at the end of this year.

Santos has already entered the front-end engineering and design stage.

The project proposal is to capture the 1.7 million tonnes/year of carbon dioxide currently separated from natural gas from Cooper basin fields at the Moomba processing plant and to reinject it into the same geological formations that have reservoired the gas prior to production.

Santos chief executive officer Kevin Gallagher said the cost of the abatement is estimated to be less than $30 (Aus.)/tonne and the aim is to drive the costs even lower with scale and experience.

Cooper basin reinjection capacity has been assessed at up to 20 million tonnes/year of carbon dioxide for 50 years. Gallagher said the basin has the potential to be a large-scale carbon sink for power generators and other industries in eastern and southern Australia.

BP managing director of exploration and production in Australia, Emil Ismayilov, said CCS has an important role to play in meeting the objectives of the Paris Agreement.

BP’s agreement with Santos is being made as part of BP’s Good Standing Agreement with the Australian Joint Authority in relation to the company’s withdrawal from its promised exploration work program in the Great Australian Bight in 2017.

BP is involved in CCS research, development, and projects around the world including the Net Zero Teeside project in the UK which aims to be the world’s first large-scale commercial facility for capturing and sequestering carbon emissions from gas-fired power generation.