French multinational energy and petroleum firm TotalEnergies plans to add carbon capture and storage (CCS) with its 5.3 million tons per year Papua LNG in Papua New Guinea, as part of the company’s efforts to reach its net zero emissions goal by 2050.
TotalEnergies plans to make a final investment decision on Papua LNG by the end of 2023.
“We plan to have CCS from day one for Papua LNG in order to reduce our scope one and two emissions,” Julien Pouget, TotalEnergies senior vice-president Asia Pacific exploration, production and renewables told delegates at the 16th Papua New Guinea mining and petroleum investment conference in Sydney, Australia.
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TotalEnergies plans to operate CCS with a capacity of between 50 million and 100 million tons per year by 2050 as compared to the present around 7 million tons, Pouget said.
TotalEnergies is the operator of the Papua LNG project, which is set to produce its first gas in either late 2027 or early 2028. It will then become Papua New Guinea’s second LNG production facility after ExxonMobil’s 6.9 million tons per year PNG LNG.
Papua LNG will extract gas feedstock from the Elk and Antelope onshore fields. In case the project is sanctioned, Papua New Guinea will have the right to have a 22.5% stake in the venture, while TotalEnergies will have 31.1%, ExxonMobil will have 28.3%, Australian oil and gas producer Santos will have 17.7%, and the remaining will be held by local landowners.
Earlier in 2022, the venture partners began the initial phase of engineering and design studies for Papua LNG’s upstream production sites.
This article does not explain how and where the carbon will be stored, nor state whether it will be used for enhanced methane extraction.