Half Australia’s increase in CO2 emissions has been linked to WA project’s failure to bury its greenhouse gas underwater

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Oil and gas company Chevron says a long-delayed carbon capture and storage project has begun operating at one of the country’s largest liquefied natural gas developments.

The Gorgon LNG development in the Pilbara, promised as a landmark development in burying greenhouse gas to limit emissions from fossil fuels, was supposed to start along with gas production in 2016. But the project was repeatedly delayed, with the company blaming technical issues.

Half of the increase in Australia’s annual carbon dioxide emissions have been linked to Chevron and its partner’s failure to deliver on its agreement with the Western Australian government to capture emissions from an underwater gas field and inject them into a reservoir 2km under Barrow Island.

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The company announced that the safe startup and operation of the carbon dioxide injection system had begun. The Chevron Australia managing director, Al Williams, said it was “one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas mitigation projects ever undertaken by industry”.

“This achievement is the result of strong collaboration across industry and governments and supports our objective of providing affordable, reliable and ever-cleaner energy essential to our modern lives,” he said.

“We are monitoring system performance and plan to safely ramp up injection volumes over the coming months as we bring online processing facilities.”

Williams said once fully operational the carbon dioxide injection facility would reduce Gorgon’s emissions by about 40%.

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Richie Merzian, the climate and energy program director with progressive thinktank The Australia Institute, described the start of the project as “better late than never”.

He noted the company had not released details of how much it had sequestered. “Given the lengthy delays and excuses Chevron has offered to date … we will watch with interest when the project gets ramped up and is fully operational as promised,” Merzian said.

Politicians applauded the announcement. “This has been a very expensive and complicated proposal that has challenged both the proponents and regulators alike, and having it finally cross the production line must be a relief to all,” the WA opposition environment spokesman, Steve Thomas, said.

The company has previously said between 3.4m and 4m tonnes of carbon dioxide would be buried each year. It was estimated it would cut Gorgon’s total emissions – counting both fugitive emissions from gas wells and those released during production, when the gas is compressed into liquid form for export – by about 40%. The $2.5bn project is backed by $60m in federal government funding.

Federal government data shows LNG production is the main reason national emissions have risen year-on-year. Berlin-based researchers at Climate Analytics found the growth in LNG pollution in Australia between 2015 and 2020 would effectively wipe out that avoided through the 23% national renewable energy target.