Santos, APA to study CCS pipeline development in South Australia
Santos Ltd. and energy infrastructure company APA Group signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to explore development of potential carbon capture and storage (CCS) pipelines for the Moomba CCS plant in South Australia.
The scope of the MoU is to assess the potential to unlock decarbonization opportunities by connecting heavy CO2 emitters and/or CO2 import locations to the Santos operated CCS plant in Moomba, South Australia via CCS pipelines (OGJ Online, Nov. 2, 2021).
The collaboration will include an assessment of CCS pipeline transport routes from certain emission sources in Gladstone, Port Bonython, and Greater Sydney to the Moomba CCS plant in the Cooper basin. These opportunities are subject to necessary internal and external approvals and a longer-form project agreement being negotiated and finalized by the parties.
The Moomba CCS project is the most advanced of Santos’s three planned CCS hubs in Australia, with the potential for Phase 1 to store up to 1.7 million tonnes/year of CO2. Actual volumes stored will depend on gas production levels in the Cooper basin which in turn will determine the volume of CO2 available for storage. First injection is on track to begin in 2024.
Earlier this month, Santos, along with Moomba project partner Beach Energy Ltd., secured additional carbon storage acreage west-southwest of the Moomba carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in South Australia (OGJ Online, Nov. 16, 2023).
