Chevron has started testing its Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) facility at the Gorgon LNG project in Western Australia. The CCS equipment is installed on the site of a three-train 15.6 Mt/year liquefaction plant, currently under construction and expected to be commissioned in 2015.
The CCS project is expected to store between 3.4 and 4.1 Mt/year of CO2 in underground salt formations, with three CO2 compression trains and nine injection wells. The CCS facility, which is expected to cost US$2bn (US$54m financed by the Australian government), was 67%-complete at the end of 2013 and should be fully operational in 2015. Chevron operates the Gorgon project (47%), in partnership with ExxonMobil, Shell (25% each) and Osaka Gas, Tokyo Gas and Chubu Electric (sharing the remainder).
Gorgon LNG CCS project could be followed by other CCS projects. In 2013, a bill amending laws from the 1960s to allow underground greenhouse gas storage was adopted by the parliament of Western Australia. The South West CO2 Geo-sequestration Hub, expected to be commissioned in 2015 at the earliest, will have a storage capacity of 2.5 Mt/year but could be extended to 7.5 Mt/year.