Santos 'Books' First Carbon Storage Capacity

Australian giant Santos has booked 100 million tons of CO2 storage resources in the Cooper Basin in South Australia.

This represents a subset of the total prospective storage resource in the Cooper Basin and follows the final investment decision on the 1.7 million ton per annum Moomba carbon capture and storage (CCS) project in November 2021.

Santos believes this is the first booking in the world under the CO2 Storage Resource Management System (SRMS) sponsored by the Society of Petroleum Engineers.

Santos Managing Director and CEO Kevin Gallagher stated that the announcement of storage capacity in the Cooper Basin is a significant step in the company’s decarbonization 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 tons of storage is,” Gallagher said.

“Santos sees CO2 storage capacity as a strategic competitive advantage in evolving cleaner energy, clean fuels, and carbon markets. This globally significant carbon storage capacity booking is another tangible example of Santos leading the way in establishing the foundations to support the energy transition,” he added.

The announcement forms a part of Santos’ Annual Reserves Statement. Proved plus probable (2P) reserves increased by 80 percent to 1,676 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe) at the end of 2021, primarily due to the final investment decision on the Barossa project and the Oil Search merger.

The merger with Oil Search added 416 mmboe of 2P reserves while the final investment decision on Barossa added a further 373 mmboe. Santos has booked Barossa reserves at a 50 percent interest following the execution of a binding Sale and Purchase Agreement to sell a 12.5 percent stake in Barossa to JERA, completion of which is expected in the first half of 2022.

The company claimed that 2C contingent resources increased by 41 percent to 3,219 mmboe, primarily due to the Oil Search merger partially offset by the commercialization of Barossa 2C resources to reserves at FID.

The Oil Search merger added 819 mmboe 2C in Papua New Guinea and 401 mmboe in Alaska. The gross 2C contingent resource in Alaska is unchanged from that previously reported by Oil Search, but per the 2018 Petroleum Resources Management System (PRMS), Santos has adjusted its net share Alaska 2C resource to remove royalties.

2P reserves increased by 835 mmboe before production in 2021. The annual 2P reserves replacement was 907 percent and the three-year replacement 355 percent.

“Today’s statement is the result of Santos’ disciplined annual reserves process, which include an external audit of approximately 94 percent of total 2P reserves,” Gallagher said.

GLNG achieved greater than 100 percent 2P reserves replacement for the second year in a row, while reserves were also added in the Cooper Basin before production.

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