Carbon+Intel: Indonesia Carbon Capture Storage Deal Could Need US$500 Million

Deployment of carbon capture storage (CCS) in Indonesia by American energy giant Exxon Mobil Corp could cost about US$500 million, a senior official at Indonesia’s state oil firm Pertamina said on the 8^th November.

Pertamina and ExxonMobil signed a memorandum of understanding during the COP26 summit last week to look at ways of using CCS in South-east Asia’s largest country.

“Our provisional estimate for investment needs is around US$500 million, excluding operating costs that will be incurred during CCS operations,” Daniel Purba, Pertamina’s senior vice president of corporate strategy, told CNBC Indonesia.

CCS facilities are likely to be implemented in two Indonesia oil and gas fields, namely the Gundih field in Cepu and the Sukowati field in Bojonegoro, in Central and East Java respectively, Mr Purba said.

A spokesperson for ExxonMobil did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Pertamina and ExxonMobil would need to build a four km (2.49 miles) gas pipeline from Gundih to a reservoir where they would inject the carbon, and another 30 km gas pipeline from Sukowati, Purba added.

CCS traps emissions and buries them underground but is not yet at the commercialisation stage.

CCS advocates see the technology as essential to help meet net zero emissions and key to unlocking large-scale economic hydrogen production. Critics, however, say CCS will extend the life of dirty fossil fuels.

Indonesia, the world’s eighth-biggest carbon emitter, has brought forward its goal for net zero emissions to 2060 or sooner.

Source: Pipeline & Gas Journal