The future of Santos’ $3.6 billion Narrabri Gas Project may depend on the approval and construction of a controversial carbon capture and storage project that could impact the Great Artesian Basin, newly released documents obtained under freedom of information show.
The documents can be accessed here.
Correspondence between the NSW Government and Santos captured in Lock the Gate’s freedom of information request notes:
“Santos has previously expressed interest in opportunities to utilise carbon capture storage (CCS) in NSW around the Moree region and Santos is likely to ask about the NSW Government’s current position on CCS and the need for a regulatory framework.”
The documents (GIPA doc 1, page 3) suggest Santos was considering CCS in NSW in order to comply with the Federal Government’s Safeguard Mechanism and its own emissions reduction target of net zero by 2040.
Santos’ apparent plan came despite a bipartisan outcry in response to another carbon capture and storage facility proposed for the Great Artesian Basin in Queensland.
Last year, the then Labor Government rejected Glencore’s project, following “universal” opposition, including from Gina Rinehart, rural lobby group AgForce, and Nationals leader David Littleproud. The project posed a major threat to water quality, including through the acidification of groundwater (as CO2 dissolves) and the mobilisation of hazardous inorganic elements into groundwater resources.
It also risked inducing earthquakes, subsidence, and other mass movements if existing faults were exacerbated or the geological stability of the site was otherwise weakened.
Mullaley Gas and Pipeline Accord spokesperson Margaret Fleck said, “Any CCS project in this part of the world is likely to pose a significant risk to Great Artesian Basin water.
“The Narrabri Gas Project is located within a key recharge zone of the basin. Thousands of farmers and many towns including Moree rely on the Great Artesian Basin for water.
“The risk to the GAB was one of the principal reasons Glencore’s proposed QLD carbon capture and storage project was rejected last year. The NSW Minns Government must not entertain any such destructive proposal in NSW.”
Lock the Gate Alliance National Coordinator Carmel Flint said, “This appears to be a minute-to-midnight desperate scramble from Santos to make its Narrabri Gas Project fit with federal Safeguard Mechanism laws and its own company policy (See page 3, GIPA doc 1).
“It’s remarkable that, more than a decade after the NGP was first proposed, Santos has only recently realised it needs to do something about the significant emissions it would produce.
“The reality is however, that carbon capture and storage projects are no solution to abating emissions from new fossil fuel projects - the only way to truly do that is to not build new gas projects in the first place.”
ENDS
Background:
Current status of NGP:
Whether or not it builds this CCS project, these documents suggest Santos is still a long way off making any final investment decision on the Narrabri Gas Project (GIPA doc 1 page 3).
Santos is:
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Awaiting final decisions for its Narrabri Lateral Pipeline (gasfield to Narrabri), its Hunter Gas Pipeline (QLD border to Newcastle) and the Hunter Lateral Pipeline (HGP to existing pipeline network).
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Yet to reach access agreements with up to 174 landholders along its Hunter Gas Pipeline route (GIPA doc 1 page 2).
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Waiting for a decision by the Native Title Tribunal after Gomeroi Traditional Owners successfully appealed the tribunal’s earlier decision to approve the project in the Federal Court, on the grounds that the NTT should have taken climate impacts into consideration when considering whether it was in the public interest. This decision was recently delayed until the second week of May.
Record of CCS in Australia:
Santos has been forced to come up with its CCS proposal in response to the introduction of the federal Safeguard Facility, and its own pledge to be “net zero emissions” by 2040.
But, as the failures of the world’s largest carbon capture and storage project - Chevron’s Gorgon facility in Western Australia - demonstrate, CCS has never worked at scale, and certainly not at a scale required to completely offset the 127 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions that the NGP is expected to create.
15Mt of this would be scope 1 emissions and therefore impacted by the federal government’s safeguard mechanism. Santos does not include its scope 3 emissions in its net-zero target, but does include scope 2, which for the Narrabri Gas Project would be 18Mt, meaning to meet its own goals, the company needs to find a way to completely offset 33Mt of CO2-e.
Santos’ $220 million Moomba CCS facility is only expected to sequester 1.7 million tonnes of carbon per annum - if it works as expected. Santos’ company-wide Scope 1 GHG emissions for 2021-22 were about eight million tonnes and are growing. CCS also fails to address the lion's share of emissions - scope 3 or downstream emissions - created when the gas is burnt.