August saw significant advances in the Territory’s transition towards net zero with both INPEX and Santos realising substantial milestones in advancing decarbonisation technologies.

A joint venture between INPEX, Woodside Energy and Total Energies for the Bonaparte Basin has been awarded a greenhouse gas storage assessment permit, from the 2021 Offshore Greenhouse Gas Storage Acreage Release.

The INPEX-led Bonaparte Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS) Project is a significant step towards realising a large-scale CCUS Hub at the proposed Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct and has the potential to become one of the largest CCUS projects in the world.

The INPEX-operated Ichthys LNG facility located at Middle Arm would be a significant user of this CCUS facility as it seeks to reduce its emissions and advance realisation of a net-zero carbon society by 2050.

The Petrel Sub-basin, as part of the Bonaparte Basin 180 km west of Darwin, is considered a highly prospective geological storage site. It has a storage capacity of 6.48 gigatonnes in this individual basin reservoir. Figuratively, this is the capacity to store around 374 years of carbon produced across the Northern Territory each year, or 13 years Australia-wide, based on 2020 emissions.

CCUS is a proven decarbonisation process, successfully used in Europe for over 25 years, that captures carbon preventing entry to the atmosphere, followed by either:

• transport for permanent storage underground in geological formations
• use as a feedstock, pivoting sequestered carbon into feedstock as part of circular economy principals.

Santos, operators of the Barossa Project joint venture and Darwin LNG facility, announced a final investment decision to proceed with the $311 million Darwin Pipeline Duplication Project.

The new pipeline will transport gas from the offshore Barossa Field, located 300 kilometres north of Darwin, to the onshore Darwin LNG facility at Middle Arm. Barossa Field gas is intended to replace the current supply from the Bayu-Undan facility with production targeted in the first half of 2025.

The Barossa Field is estimated to be one of the lowest cost, new LNG supply projects in the world with significant potential to support increasing global demands for low cost, cleaner and reliable fuel sources.

Realisation will kick-start the US$600 million investment in the Darwin LNG life extension which will extend the facility life for around 20 years. Wood Mackenzie forecasts LNG demand will double to more than 800 million tonnes by 2050, with the majority expected to be consumed in Asia.

Importantly, the Darwin Pipeline Duplication Project will allow for the Barossa Project to be CCUS ready, with the existing Bayu-Undan to Darwin pipeline to be repurposed to facilitate CCUS.

The Bayu-Undan CCUS project has the potential to store up to 10 million tonnes of carbon per annum, equivalent to about 1.5 per cent of Australia’s carbon emissions each year.

Work is scheduled to commence on the Darwin Pipeline Duplication project in 2023, subject to Australian and Northern Territory Government regulatory approvals.

Collaboration to accelerate diverse clean energy solutions is critical to achieve out net zero commitments and is a significant opportunity for sustainable economic development in the Territory.

Realisation of CCUS technologies in the Territory will enable:

• decarbonisation of existing industries, such as natural gas processing, enabling critical sectors to continue and grow as they transition towards net zero emissions
• accelerated realisation of low-carbon hydrogen to fast track fossil fuel transitions
• low-emission petrochemicals production and critical minerals processing vital for emerging technologies such as electric vehicles and batteries.

The Territory is ideally placed to become a world leader in emerging decarbonisation technologies such as CCUS, with proximity to sizable geological storage, significant enabling infrastructure commitments and shared-user opportunities across the proposed Middle Arm Precinct.

Territory CCUS technologies will support significant carbon abatement today as our transition accelerates towards diverse clean energy technologies and renewable energy solutions.