Chevron has launched the Gorgon carbon dioxide injection system, one of the world’s largest greenhouse gas mitigation projects.
The system will reduce Gorgon’s greenhouse gas emissions by about 40 percent, or more than 100 million tonnes over the life of the injection project, when fully operational.
Chevron Australia managing director Al Williams said, “We are monitoring system performance and plan to safely ramp up injection volumes over the coming months as we bring online processing facilities.”
Gorgon is one of the world’s largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects and the largest resources industry project in Australia.
Located on Barrow Island, Gorgon supplies 15.6 million tonnes per annum of LNG and 300 terajoules of gas per day to Western Australia.
Carbon dioxide is separated from the natural gas stream prior to liquefaction as it would freeze into a solid if it remained during the liquefaction process.
While standard industry practice is to vent the separated reservoir carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, the Gorgon project will inject the reservoir carbon dioxide into the Dupuy Formation beneath Barrow Island.
Once the reservoir carbon dioxide is injected, it will migrate through the Dupuy Formation until it becomes trapped.
“This achievement is the result of strong collaboration across industry and governments and supports our objective of providing affordable, reliable and ever-cleaner energy essential to our modern lives,” Williams said.
In steady-state operations, Gorgon will have the lowest greenhouse gas emissions intensity of any LNG project in Australia.