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Matthew Doman
+61 8 8116 5260 / +61 (0) 421 888 858
matthew.doman@santos.com
The Hon Kevin Rudd MP today became the first Australian Prime Minister to visit the Moomba gas processing plant in the Cooper Basin – one of Australia’s largest onshore resources projects and the site of Santos’ proposed Moomba Carbon Storage facility.
The visit followed the Prime Minister’s announcement yesterday that the Australian Government would launch a Global Carbon Capture and Storage Initiative designed to leverage Australia’s unique opportunities for large scale sequestration and its potential to demonstrate the technical and commercial feasibility of carbon capture and storage.
Santos fully supports that initiative.
As one of Australia’s largest producers of gas for the domestic market, Santos is committed to providing long-term clean energy solutions for Australia.
“We believe there is a substantially larger role for gas in providing Australia’s base-load electricity needs as the economy transitions to a lower carbon emissions footprint,” Santos chief executive David Knox said. “Equally important will be Australia’s ability to develop cleaner energy options, and carbon capture and storage will be essential to that endeavour.”
The Moomba Carbon Storage project has the long-term objective of establishing a large-scale carbon storage hub at Moomba, which could eventually store up to 20 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year and 1 billion tonnes over the life of the project.
It would do so by injecting carbon dioxide into the depleted and/or depleting oil and gas reservoirs of the Cooper Basin, thereby providing a secure storage solution for major carbon emitters in Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia.
Mr Knox said: “Santos believes the Cooper Basin has the potential to serve as a unique clean energy hub for eastern Australia, sustaining large-scale commercial carbon storage and geothermal and solar thermal energy. With the right leadership and vision, the Basin could become not just a pivotal part of Australia’s future climate change response and infrastructure, but a model for how clean energy technologies can be integrated and implemented to drive substantial carbon reduction outcomes.”
