Woodside Accused of Greenwashing Over CCS Plans

The Australian government’s call for two weeks of public consultation starting January 2 on Woodside Energy’s plans to sequester CO2 as part of the Browse project off Western Australia has met with opposition from environmental groups. The consultation period enables interested parties to voice their opinion on whether or not an environmental impact statement is required.

The proposed Browse carbon capture and storage (CCS) project would capture a compressed CO2 stream from onboard the two FPSOs proposed as part of the Browse to NWS Project. Woodside, as operator, is proposing to develop the Brecknock, Calliance and Torosa conventional natural gas fields located in the offshore Browse Basin, approximately 425km north of Broome.

The proposal calls for infrastructure to transport, inject and permanently sequester up to 270 mmscfd (~14,200 tonnes of CO2 per day) into the Calliance Storage Formation (near Scott Reef) at an expected annual average injection rate of 3-4 million tonnes per annum (mtpa).

The Browse to NWS Project is expected to produce approximately 80 million tonnes of reservoir CO2 over its lifetime. The Browse CCS project would be designed to capture and permanently sequester, at a minimum, 85% of the CO2 removed from reservoir fluids. This is expected to