Santos and BP sign CCS agreement

SANTOS and BP have entered a non-binding agreement to support the Moomba carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in Australia.

BP could invest A$20m (US$13.3m) in support of the CCS project, subject to a final investment decision by the end of the year.

Santos is in the front-end engineering design (FEED) stage for the Moomba CCS project. It would aim to capture 1.7m t/y of CO₂ from the Moomba natural gas processing plant. The captured CO₂ would be stored in geological formations in the Cooper Basin that previously held oil and gas. The basin has a CO₂ storage capacity of 20m t/y for 50 years and could be used for other industries.

Kevin Gallagher, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Santos, said: “Australia needs low-cost, large-scale abatement to maintain our position as a leading energy exporter and manufacturer of energy-intensive materials such as steel and cement, as well as to enable new industries such as hydrogen.”

Emil Ismayilov, Managing Director Exploration and Production Australia at BP, said: “We believe CCS has an important role to play in meeting the objectives of the Paris Agreement. It can achieve deep emissions reductions in existing power infrastructure and energy-intensive industries that rely on the use of fossil fuels.”