Australia's upper house of parliament the Senate has passed a key bill to allow for undersea storage of CO2 from foreign jurisdictions, as requested by the nation's oil and gas sector.
TheEnvironment Protection (Sea Dumping) Amendment (Using New Technologies to Fight Climate Change) Bill also enables permits to be granted for the export of CO2 for the purpose of sequestration, known as carbon capture and storage (CCS), ratifying the 2009 London Protocol amendment.
CCS technology has proved controversial, with senators representing the Greens and some independents voting against the bill's passage, arguing it prolongs the use of CO2-intensive fossil fuels. "CCS is a unicorn technology that the Sea Dumping Bill attempts to legitimise while giving political cover to rip open new fossil fuel projects," Greens senator Peter Whish-Wilson said on 8 November.
But Australia's federal Labor government backed the changes and gained support from the main opposition Coalition which voted with the government on 13 November to pass the bill.
Australian independent oil and gas firm Santos was vocal in calling for the changes, needing to progress its Bayu-Undan CCS as the depleting field sits in East Timorese waters, 500km north-west of Northern Territory capital Darwin.
Santos wants Bayu-Undan to act as a facility for its high-CO2 Barossa project, other Timor Sea gas producers and Asian industrial customers.
Santos has signed four initial agreements for Bayu-Undan CCS, ultimately anticipating 10mn t/yr of CO2 storage demand at the facility.
The Adelaide-based firm has announced a partnership with South Korean energy company SK E&S to develop CO2 storage at its G-11-AP permit site, within Western Australia's Bonaparte basin.
Santos and SK E&S will also collaborate on Bayu-Undan CCS and developing a trans-boundary business model to aggregate and transport CO2 from South Korea to Australia, the firm said on 13 November.
The number of CCS projects worldwide rose to 392 at the end of July, a report from the Global CCS Institute said. The number of projects more than doubled on the year, likely because of supportive policy such as the US' Inflation Reduction Act.
