Chevron misses CCS targets at Australia's Gorgon LNG

Chevron is working with the Western Australia (WA) state regulator on a shortfall in the volume of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) injected into a carbon capture and storage (CCS) facility at its 15.6mn t/yr Gorgon LNG venture on Barrow Island offshore WA.

Chevron said last week it has injected around 5mn t of CO2e since starting the system in August 2019, which is more than three years since first gas was delivered from train one of the three-train project. The start-up of the CCS plant at Gorgon endured several delays as Chevron missed start-up targets for 2017 and 2018.

The Gorgon LNG plant processes feedstock gas from the Gorgon field, which has a CO2 content of around 14pc, and from the Jansz-Io field, which has less than 1pc of CO2e. Up to around 4mn t of CO2e is extracted at the plant. The CCS plant was expected to hold 4mn t/yr of CO2e, but the update from Chevron implies that it is injecting around 2.5mn t/yr of CO2e or 37.5pc below the expected annualised rate.

Although the CCS system had delivered significant reductions in Gorgon's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the time taken to safely start the system meant Chevron had not met injection requirements, said Chevron Australia's managing director Mark Hatfield.

"Chevron is working with the WA regulator on making up the shortfall and will report publicly on that later in the year," Hatfield said.

The WA Department of Water and Environmental Regulation (DWER) has given Chevron until 9 August to provide further information on the performance of the Gorgon CCS facility.

The WA state government, at the time of the Gorgon LNG project approval, required that 100pc of CO2e from the gas fields, not CO2e produced from the liquefaction process, be removed before the gas-processing operation and that an average of 80pc of CO2e from the gas fields be injected into a CCS facility over a five-year period.

The Gorgon CCS plant is the largest of its kind in Australia. The country's upstream sector and federal government have heavily promoted CCS as a key part of the energy transition and to underpin future hydrogen projects, so the performance of the Gorgon CCS facility may influence future investment and policy decisions.

By Kevin Morrison

Related News