Australia’s Santos expands CCS acreage

Australian LNG player Santos and joint venture partner Beach Energy have secured additional carbon storage acreage after they won a gas storage retention licence west of Moomba.

The South Australian Department for Energy and Mining awarded the licence to the two firms.

Santos said in a statement that the joint venture is authorized to carry out activities to establish the nature and extent of natural reservoirs, test the reservoirs for storage of CO2, and establish the commercial feasibility of CO2 storage and storage techniques.

The licence area is near Santos’ flagship Moomba carbon capture and storage (CCS) project which is on track for startup next year, it said.

Santos said the Moomba CCS project could safely and permanently store up to 1.7 million tonnes of CO2 per annum in reservoirs which have previously stored oil and gas for tens of millions of years.

The company has already booked 100 million tonnes of carbon storage resource in the Cooper Basin in South Australia.

Once evaluations are completed, Santos will report the carbon storage resource volumes associated with this additional acreage, it said.

Santos managing director and CEO Kevin Gallagher said the new licence area could enable “cost-effective carbon capture and storage beyond the initial phase of Moomba CCS phase for decades to come.”

“This is a potential opportunity for low-cost abatement of emissions for nearby customers in hard-to-abate sectors such as steel, cement and metals manufacturing. Our customers in Asia are also looking to CCS in Australia to help their economies decarbonize,” Gallagher said.

Deal with SK E&S

Santos said in a separate statement it has formalized a memorandum of understanding to collaborate on carbon solutions with SK E&S, a unit of South Korean conglomerate SK Group.

The MoU provides for Santos and SK E&S to cooperate in seeking to develop a low-carbon hub at Darwin in Northern Territory after a CO2 storage permit was awarded for G-11-AP, within the Bonaparte basin, off the coast of Western Australia in 2022, it said.

Santos and SK E&S will also collaborate on securing additional CO2 storage including the Bayu-Undan field and develop a transboundary business model to aggregate and transport CO2 from Korea to Australia for safe and secure storage underground, the firm said.

Most Popular

Yang Ming books LNG-powered containerships in South Korea

Taiwan’s Yang Ming Marine Transport has decided to order LNG dual-fuel container vessels from South Korea's Hanwha Ocean as part of its ongoing fleet optimization plan.

Sabah to take stake in Petronas’ third FLNG

SMJ Energy, owned by the Sabah government, has signed a heads of agreement with Malaysian energy giant Petronas to take a 25 percent stake in the latter's third floating LNG production unit.

Japan’s LNG imports drop in June

Japan’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports dropped by 2.8 percent in June compared to the same month last year, according to provisional data released by the country’s Ministry of Finance.

More News Like This

Santos says Barossa project 97 percent complete

The Barossa gas project, which will supply feed gas to the Santos-operated Darwin LNG plant, is 97 percent complete and remains on target for first production in the third quarter of 2025, according to Australia's Santos.

Santos inks LNG supply deal with QatarEnergy’s trading unit

Australian LNG player Santos has signed a mid-term LNG supply deal with QatarEnergy Trading, a unit of state-owned LNG giant QatarEnergy.

Santos enters exclusive due diligence with Adnoc-led consortium

Australian LNG player Santos has entered into a process and exclusivity agreement with a consortium led by Adnoc's investment unit, XRG, related to the latter's $18.7 billion takeover offer.

KN, SK Innovation E&S extend LNG cooperation pact

Lithuanian LNG terminal operator KN Energies and SK Innovation E&S, the energy unit of South Korean conglomerate SK Group, have extended their framework deal on cooperation opportunities in international LNG business development.