Summary

South Australia has a large endowment of onshore storage reservoirs suitable for carbon capture and storage (CCS), particularly in the depleted oil and gas fields of the Cooper and Otway basins. The implementation of carbon capture and storage will decarbonise existing emissions intensive industries and increase their global competitiveness in a carbon constrained future. Carbon capture and storage gives South Australia the opportunity to create a new industrial ‘hub’ for competitive abatement of emissions – especially in sectors with difficult to abate process emissions such as cement, steel and iron manufacturing; natural gas processing; and biofuel production and to import and geologically sequester CO₂ emissions from international sources in particular from industrial Asian countries such as Korea and Japan. Furthermore, carbon capture and storage can also enable new technologies such as low carbon hydrogen production from natural gas, low carbon fuels such as synthetic methane, enhanced oil recovery and direct air carbon capture and storage.

Analysis by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and International Energy Agency has consistently shown that carbon capture and storage is an essential part of the lowest cost path towards meeting global climate targets.

The Department are involved in the development and implementation of policies, international standards, and leading practice regulation to facilitate carbon capture and storage projects. DEM chairs the Standards Australia National Mirror Committee to contribute on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) Technical Committee 265 for Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage. The scope of ISO Technical Committee 265 is for the standardisation of design, construction, operation, environmental planning and management, risk management, quantification, monitoring and verification, and related activities in the field of carbon dioxide capture, transportation, EOR and geological storage.

The Moomba CCS project in northeast South Australia completed commissioning in September 2024 and is now injecting carbon dioxide in the depleted gas fields of the Cooper Basin. Each year, the Moomba CCS project will permanently store approximately 1.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide processed by the Moomba gas plant – representing a cut of more than 7% to South Australia’s emissions. These fields have held natural gas and oil for 85 million years and can provide for safe, low-cost and permanent storage of carbon. In the long term, carbon storage in the Cooper Basin could store 20 million tonnes a year from other industrial emitters for more than 50 years.

South Australia’s efficient and effective licensing and regulatory framework under the Energy Resources Act 2000 demonstrated by the recent approval of the Moomba CCS project can expedite CCS deployment in a timelier manner than elsewhere in Australia.

Santos’ Climate Transition Plan (CTP) demonstrates that South Australia has transpired into a desirable location for CCS for the importation of CO₂ from Asian Pacific economies illustrated in the following extracted commercialisation pathways diagram from the CTP.

As part of South Australia’s 20-Year State Infrastructure Strategy, one of the Infrastructure SA identified opportunities that could drive long-term economic growth was Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage (CCUS), which presents significant potential to leverage South Australia’s existing strengths and align them with strategic infrastructure investment. The report highlighted the need to establish Government/industry partnerships, particularly for key CCUS infrastructure (SA Government CCUS Infrastructure Report).

Example page from Santos’ Climate Transition Plan

• Download the carbon capture and storage in South Australia information sheet (PDF 988 KB)
• InfrastructureSA – Independent Advice

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Carbon Capture Utilisation and Storage (CCUS)

The Department acknowledge there is significant potential for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the South Australian Cooper and Eromanga basins. EOR using carbon dioxide (CO₂) is of particular interest due to the added environmental benefit of sequestering CO₂ underground. The descriptions and outputs provided relate to the CO₂ EOR initiatives the Department are progressing.

Enhanced oil recovery, status and potential in Australia

DEM represents Australia as a member country of the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Technology Collaboration Program (TCP) for EOR – an independent, international group of experts that enable governments and industries from around the world to share knowledge regarding EOR technology including CO₂ flooding.

Potential for carbon dioxide EOR in the Cooper-Eromanga Basins

In 2018 a research project regarding the potential for CO₂ EOR in South Australia was undertaken by the Department, including application in residual oil zones (ROZ). The research also involved screening of fields in the Cooper and Eromanga basins to determine where CO₂ is more likely to achieve miscibility with oil. The final report is available to download with data and results provided as appendices.

Download the Potential for Carbon Dioxide EOR in the Cooper and Eromanga Basins report (PDF 3.3 MB)

Presentations

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