Australia’s Santos joins OGCI zero methane initiative

Australian independent Santos has signed the Aiming for Zero Methane Emissions initiative, which seeks "near-zero" methane emissions by 2030 from signatories' operated oil and gas assets.

The project, which now has 23 signatories, was launched in March 2022 by the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI) — a group of 12 major oil and gas companies.

Santos has operations in Australia, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and the US. The company produced 92.2mn bl of oil equivalent in 2023 and has set a target of net zero emissions across scopes 1 and 2 by 2040 for its equity share.

The company is also looking to develop three carbon capture and storage (CCS) hubs offshore Australia, which could have a total future storage capacity of up to 35mn t/yr of CO2 — though Santos did not provide a timeframe. Its Moomba CCS project is 80pc complete and the first CO2 injection is expected in the middle of this year.

Santos today also formally endorsed a World Bank initiative to eliminate routing flaring from oil operations by 2030. Santos will "will develop and implement plans to achieve its commitment under this initiative", it said. It will also report "flaring and improvement progress" to the World Bank on an annual basis, from 2025.

The recent UN Cop 28 climate summit, in November-December 2023, placed scrutiny on oil and gas producers' emissions reduction plans. Companies representing over 40pc of global oil production pledged to cut emissions — including methane to "near zero" by 2030. The summit saw renewed focus on methane emissions, although the frameworks are voluntary.

By Georgia Gratton