World-leading carbon capture, use and storage organisation CO2CRC today welcomed Chevron Australia’s $16 million investment into research infrastructure to improve CO2 storage processes in CCUS projects.
The infrastructure funding will support the drilling of a new, deep well and installation and testing of novel technologies at the Otway International Test Centre, near Warrnambool, Victoria.
CO2CRC CEO Dr Matthias Raab said the landmark funding laid the foundations for the organisation’s planned Otway Stage 4 program, a multinational research program with leading researchers from Australia, United Kingdon, United States, South Korea and Japan. The proposed field trials of several technologies have been developed by CO2CRC and its research partners, to improve characterisation and optimise utilisation of CO2 storage resources.
“The funding provided by Chevron, a foundation member of CO2CRC, ensures that the Otway International Test Centre continues as critical national research infrastructure for applied research into CCS, an essential low emission technology that will support the energy transition towards net zero,” Dr Raab said.
Improved utilisation of ‘investment ready’ and ‘discovered’ storage resources is one of the recommended pathways towards achieving the 2035 target. Increased and more accessible storage resources will be vital in supporting hard-to-abate industries and the deployment of carbon removal technologies such as direct air capture (DAC).
Further, new infrastructure will allow direct, high-resolution measurements of CO2 flow and trapping and will generate a unique, quantified dataset for improving the understanding and representation of fine-scale CO2 storage processes and thereby, will assist in the optimisation of CO2 storage resources.
The Otway International Test Centre is one of the very few global examples that provides real world data back to researchers. These real project datasets are highly valuable for CO2CRC research members and allow the training and upskilling of the much needed workforce of the future.
The new well at the Otway International Test Centre will be uniquely instrumented so that direct assessment of CO2 migration and trapping can be assessed for differing injection technologies.
The Otway International Test Centre is globally unique in demonstrating breakthrough technologies using novel deployment and data acquisition techniques and providing high quality data for modelling and interpretation.
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For more information please contact:
Roy Anderson, CO2CRC on 03 8595 9624 or roy.anderson@co2crc.com.au