The Australian
Tuesday 12/1/2010 Page: 18
CLIMATE: The federal and Victorian governments will start looking for greenhouse gas storage basins in Bass Strait next month, kick-starting up to $6 billion worth of appraisal and development expenditure over the next 15 years. Victoria's Department of Primary Industries plans a seismic survey in February and March of potential storage areas south of the big producing fields in Bass Strait's Gippsland Basin. Seismic surveys involve shooting energy pulses at the sea floor and analysing the returning waves to guess the geology below.
In a report released last month, the Rudd government's Carbon Storage Taskforce identified the Gippsland Basin as the most important of the nation's potential storage areas. The basin is near Victoria's Latrobe Valley home of the nation's dirtiest coal-fired power plants and could also be used to store NSW greenhouse gases. The government wants new storage locations for greenhouse gases, rather than using Bass Strait's depleted oil and gas reservoirs or storage space below them.
Exxon-Mobil does not want to inject carbon dioxide into space below its Bass Strait fields in case it contaminates the oil and gasfields above. The taskforee has estimated the southern Bass Strait fields could take 50 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year for 25 years. If exploration started this year, storage could be ready by 2022, the taskforce chaired by former Woodside Petroleum executive Keith Spence claims.
Private companies are expected to spend most of the $6bn the taskforce says could be spent nationwide on developing a greenhouse gas storage industry between now and 2025. About $2bn each could be spent on exploration, appraisal and development. The taskforee has recommended governments spend $254 million on a "precompetitive" exploration program, such as the one planned by Victoria's Primary Industries Department, which will cost $5m.
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