Mr Congreve outlined the importance of the carbon capture and storage project, which plans to deliver a regional carbon storage hub for eastern Australia.
The hub is expected to be developed in depleted oil and gas fields in South Australia’s Cooper Basin, with gas processing occurring at Santos’ Moomba facility before being transported and injected into a carbon dioxide stream into partially depleted oil reservoirs.
Mr Congreve said that ultimately, Santos plans to link the Moomba Carbon Storage (MCS) to projects located on the east coast of Australia, and thus create Australia’s first common-user carbon storage hub.
In particular, MCS will serve eastern Queensland’s and New South Wales’ Hunter Valley coal fields. Santos has projected that these volumes could exceed 20 MMt/a of carbon dioxide over 50 years.
Mr Congreve said that the project will initially use Santos’ existing pipeline network, but based upon commercial viability, new pipelines dedicated to the transport of carbon dioxide may be constructed in the future.