Australian firm starts work on offshore carbon capture and storage project

Australian company Transborders Energy has lined up the country’s national science agency and Japanese firms to work on a plan to capture carbon dioxide, liquefy it, and transport to a site offshore Australia to be injected under the seabed.

The push comes as the Australian government recently named carbon capture and storage as one of five priority technologies it would fund in a $13 billion plan to help cut carbon emissions.

Transborders Energy, which leads the deepC Store project, said on Monday it wants to capture carbon emissions from LNG plants and other industrial plants in Australia and the Asia Pacific.

According to the company, if studies and engineering design work go ahead on target, the project could start burying CO2 after 2027.

Using technology developed for small-scale floating LNG production, Transborders wants to set up a floating facility off Australia which could inject 1.5 million tonnes a year of CO2 under the seabed.

It is yet unknown how much deepC Store would cost, but the benchmark for the project is Northern Lights project, a similar project led by Norwegian oil major Equinor in the North Sea expected to cost $788 million. That figure does not include the cost of building facilities to capture and liquefy CO2 for transport.

To realise the project, Transborders said in a statement that it signed memorandums of understanding with the Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, Kyushu Electric Power, Osaka Gas, the Australian arm of Tokyo Gas, engineering firm Add Energy, and contractor TechnipFMC.

Under these MoUs, the parties will share information and knowledge concerning the scoping and seeking funding for a concept study for evaluating the technical, commercial, and economics for developing the project.

According to the company, all of the parties bring significant experience and expertise to develop the project, whether that is as technical experts, LNG project investors who can be potential CO2 suppliers, or as prospective investors in the project.

Transborders Energy chairman Jack Sato said: “The execution of the MoUs, is a significant milestone towards developing an offshore multiuser CCS infrastructure for safely capturing, transporting and storing CO2 from LNG plants and other industrial plants in Northern Australia and Asia Pacific regions.

“This milestone also demonstrates the industry’s willingness to collaborate and accelerate the decarbonization of the Australian oil and gas industry, and to contribute to Australia’s climate goals”.

CSIRO Researcher Linda Stalker added: “This project is strongly aligned to CSIRO’s role as Australia’s energy transition catalyst. Collaboratively accelerating geological storage of industrial emissions from both the oil and gas sector and hard-to-abate industries in Australia and the region will support our nation’s transition to net zero emissions”.