Cooper Energy plans to become Australia’s first carbon-neutral domestic gas producer by fully offsetting its 2020 financial year emissions.
The company will offset all 10,022 tonnes of its greenhouse gas emissions, including 8739 tonnes of scope one equity share emissions, 360 tonnes of scope two equity share emissions and 923 tonnes of controllable scope three emissions.
As part of offsetting its emissions, Cooper is investing in carbon offsets generated from Biodiverse Carbon’s Coorong project south-east of Adelaide in South Australia.
The project uses 600 hectares of environmental plantings to generate Australian carbon credit units, and is a register emissions reduction fund project.
The company stated it would create tangible environmental benefits including restoring native vegetation and wildlife habitats, increasing the habitat for the threatened birds and importing conditions of subcostal wetlands.
Cooper managing director David Maxwell said the company was voluntarily managing its emissions footprint based on its values and as a growing domestic gas supplier.
“Our strategy is focused on producing natural gas for south-east Australia, in south-east Australia. This means our operations have a comparatively low level of emissions intensity which may otherwise exist with long pipeline transmission. We saw an opportunity to completely offer our emissions well ahead of 2050 and we took it,” Maxwell said.
He added the company had made progress with commitment to reduce gas flaring and the number of long distance rig mobilisations by investigating technology options to reduce direct emission on site where possible.
“We plan to fully offset our carbon emission annually recognising the long-term benefits to our business, the environment, and the communities where we operate. Over the coming year, we will be seeing Government certification from Climate Active as a carbon-neutral organisation,” Maxwell said.
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