It has been announced that the Woodside Energy-operated Angel CCS Joint Venture has made a proposal, which concerns the development of a large-scale CCS hub. This hub will be multi-user and it will be developed with the potential to provide help to Australian and international industries, who are looking for opportunities to decarbonise.

This proposal will be put into place through the creation of a collaboration between Woodside Energy JV and Yara Pilbara Fertilisers. Together these companies will study whether or not the development of one of the world’s largest CCS hubs will be feasible. Furthermore, they will also study whether or not this hub will have the ability to decarbonise Yara Pilbara’s current operations, which are taking place in Western Australia.

Before the CCS hub can be built at the initial desired size, the proposed facility must go through multiple technical, regulatory and commercial studies. However, if it passes these tests successfully, it has already been shown that the facility would have a processing capacity of an estimated five million tonnes of carbon dioxide every year. This would effectively make it one of the largest CCS hubs that is based within the Asia-Pacific.

The steps that have already been taken for this project, include the signing of a non-binding MoU, between Yara Pilbara and Angel CCS Joint Venture. This Mou has been created to enable the companies to go ahead with the examination around whether or not a carbon capture and storage system could be used as a way of decarbonising their current operations. The operations that the companies will pay particular attention to, are the ones that are based in the Burrup Strategic Industrial Area.

It was stated by Woodside’s Vice President of Carbon Solutions, Jayne Baird that ‘the MoU demonstrated the role CCS could play in decarbonising existing and new industries across the Pilbara.’

Alongside the MoU and the current exploration, another ongoing test that is being run on this project, is the exploration of how helpful these hubs will be when it comes to domestic applications. The companies have already started to look into the potential the hubs have for servicing international customers. This ability would allow the hubs to help reduce the emissions that are created by Australia’s key trading partners, plus it would create a new export opportunity for Australia.

A company member commented, “A multi-user CCS hub near Karratha would be ideally located to aggregate emissions from various existing industrial emissions sources across the Pilbara, providing users with advantaged access to a local, low-cost and large-scale emissions abatement solution – a competitive advantage as jurisdictions around the world implement emissions reduction targets. In addition to decarbonising existing industry, a CCS hub would also have the potential to facilitate the development of new lower-carbon industries, such as the production of hydrogen, ammonia and green steel, supporting the diversification of the Western Australia economy.”