ASX Green Energy Stocks: Santos embarks on decarbonisation path with booking of CO2 storage capacity

Santos (ASX:STO) has revealed a booking of 100 million tonnes of CO2 storage resource in South Australia’s Cooper Basin, following the final investment decision on the 1.7MT per annum Moomba carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in November 2021.

Back in November, Santos decided to go ahead with the US$165 million ($220 million) Moomba CCS project after registering the project with the Clean Energy Regulator.

The Clean Energy Regulator’s CCS method provides a crediting period of 25 years, over which period the project will qualify for Australian Carbon Credit Units for emissions reduction from Moomba CCS.

According to Santos, this is the first booking in the world in accordance with the CO2 Storage Resource Management System (SRMS) sponsored by the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

STO managing director and chief executive officer Kevin Gallagher said the announcement is a “significant step” in the company’s decarbonisation pathway and carbon storage hub strategy.

“CCS is a critical technology to achieve the world’s emission reduction goals and we only have to look at current carbon prices to see how valuable 100 million tonnes of storage is,” he said.

Santos has a 66.7 per cent interest in the Moomba CCS project and is the operator. The remaining interest is held by Beach Energy.

Carbon capture and storage tech

But there is a lot of speculation around CCS tech. While it is a known technology, it is not without its fair share of problems.

It involves the capture of carbon emissions, transporting it to a storage site – typically an underground geological formation, and depositing it where it will not enter the atmosphere.

The large scale CCS system at Chevron’s Gorgon LNG facility has been plagued with issues despite being a required part of the project.

While Chevron was meant to bury an average of 80 per cent of its (rather substantial) emissions over a five year period from 2016, the system only started emissions storage in 2019.

Even after it came online, the system has been plagued with issues, the latest being an inability to inject carbon dioxide at full capacity to ensure that reservoir pressure does not impact the geological system.

However, The International Energy Agency (IEA) has claimed that the Paris Agreement’s goal of keeping the increase in global average temperature to less than 2 degrees Celsius can only be achieved with CCS technology.

Karoon enters carbon credits agreement with Shell

Another oil and gas play, Karoon Petróleo e Gás Ltda, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Karoon Energy (ASX:KAR), has entered into an agreement with Shell Western Supply and Trading (SWST) for the purchase of more than 480,000 verified emission reductions (VERs) or carbon credits.

This will offset an estimated 60% of total Baúna-Patola Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and will result in Karoon’s Baúna operations in Brazil’s Santos Basin being carbon neutral for FY2021.

KAR CEO Dr Julian Fowles said this VER agreement is a major milestone for the company and its sustainability journey.

“Karoon has set ambitious targets to be carbon neutral for Scope 1 and 2 emissions in Baúna-Patola from FY2021 onwards, while working toward a net zero target for Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2035,” he said.

“These VERs, together with the VERs purchased in November 2021, enable us to achieve carbon neutrality for FY2021, and take us towards reaching our longer-term objectives.”

ClearVue enhances technology development in the US

Australian-based smart building materials company ClearVue Technologies (ASX:CPV) has engaged Silicon Valley entity D2Solar by signing a Master Services Agreement (MSA) for ongoing technology and product development work.

The intent behind engaging D2Solar as a component manufacturer in the US is to ensure a stable and secure US-based product supply chain, which has become a key factor in purchasing decision-making within the major North American market.

This also allows both parties to enter into an Exclusive OEM Supply Agreement for D2Solar to manufacture certain ClearVue components once final manufacturing-ready products are agreed and tested against product certification standards.

Such components would be supplied to ClearVue for inclusion in end-products or for supply to ClearVue manufacturing and fabrication licensees.

CPV executive chairman Victor Rosenberg said D2Solar is a “one of a kind” service in solar technology development.

“Very few contract development teams globally have the depth of skills and knowledge that the team at D2Solar can offer – we have been very pleased to be working with them over the last few years and are very much looking forward to deepening this relationship going forward as a tech development partner, contract manufacturing partner and through the proposed co-location.”

CPV is in initial negotiations to co-locate the US-based technical and engineering team to the D2Solar premises in California to improve product development timeframes.

A second ‘statement of work’ is currently in discussion and negotiation for an expanded scope of work.