The South Australian Government welcomes Santos’ $220 million carbon capture and store project at Moomba as another major milestone in South Australia’s economic and environmental transformation to net zero by 2050.

The Moomba carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in outback South Australia will safely store 1.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO₂) per year in perpetuity.

This represents a cut of more than 7% to South Australia’s emissions, addressing the largest single point source of emissions in South Australia.

The initial Moomba CCS project will support around 230 new South Australian jobs through construction and sustain even more over the project’s life.

South Australia has numerous onshore storage reservoirs suitable to safely capture and store carbon dioxide – particularly in the Cooper and Otway basins, which have held natural gas and oil for 85 million years.

The International Energy Agency’s Sustainable Development Scenario outline the need for a hundredfold increase in CCS between now and 2050 to achieve the world’s climate goals, alongside a suite of other technologies.

CCS projects are licensed and regulated in South Australia under the Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Act 2000. The project’s Carbon Storage Statement of Environmental Objectives was approved and gazetted in April 2021.

In a successful test in October 2020, Santos injected about 100 tonnes of CO₂ deep underground into the Strzelecki field in the Cooper Basin.

Tuesday 2  November 2021