Chevron-led JV gets GHG assessment permit offshore Australia's Barrow Island

Chevron, through its subsidiary Chevron Australia New Ventures, and its joint venture partners -- Shell Australia and Mobil Australia Resources -- have been awarded the greenhouse gas assessment permit G-20-AP, located in the Northern Carnarvon Basin offshore Western Australia, Chevron said.

G-20-AP, located adjacent to Barrow Island, covers an area of 2,222 sq km with water depths of 25-125 meters.

"Carbon capture and storage is an important tool, and this permit award demonstrates the potential to lower the carbon intensity of our operations as well as potentially third-party emissions," David Fallon, general manager of energy transition at Chevron Australia, said in a statement Dec. 18.

Chevron and its joint venture partners will now begin assessing the technical and commercial feasibility of geological carbon dioxide storage in the permit area, Chevron said.

Chevron Australia operates the Gorgon and Wheatstone natural gas facilities, manages its equal one-sixth interest in the North West Shelf Venture, operates Australia's largest onshore oilfield on Barrow Island and is also involved in exploration investments.

According to the International Energy Agency, achieving global net zero will be virtually impossible without CCUS (carbon capture, utilization and storage).

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) has the potential to reduce lifecycle emissions of upstream oil and gas assets by up to 60%, according to Vantage Upstream Enhanced Emissions datasets from S&P Global Commodity Insights.

The Asia-Pacific region has 5 million mt/year of CCS capacity under construction, while 7 million mt are in advanced stages of development, according to Commodity Insights' CCUS projects and hubs database. This capacity is projected to reach 23 million mt/year by 2035, according to its recent report.

Earlier this month, the Asia Natural Gas & Energy Association, or ANGEA, in a study with the Boston Consulting Group, highlighted the benefits of cross-border CCS and provided recommendations on bilateral and commercial agreements.

"Asia Pacific has enormous storage potential -- perhaps as much as 3 gigatonnes per annum by 2050 -- but the development of cross-border CCS has been restricted so far by the lack of a common understanding and alignment of the required regulatory framework and policies to guide agreements," ANGEA said in a separate statement at the time.

The study shared that successful bilateral negotiations and agreements require an agreement on various aspects, including ownership rights to emission reductions, data sharing for emission reduction certification, jurisdictional accountability for emission reversals from leakages and acceptable mechanisms for adjusting such reversals, regulatory jurisdiction during CO2 transportation, as well as dispute resolution mechanisms, such as arbitration forums.