Greens attack Woodside proposal to bury CO2 from WA gas project under pristine reef

Woodside Energy has proposed burying 4m tonnes of CO2 a year from its multibillion-dollar Browse project in undersea storage off the coast of Western Australia.

The federal environment department published the offshore carbon capture and storage (CCS) plans on 2 January for two weeks of public consultation before it determines whether the proposal requires an environmental assessment.

The federal and WA Greens have criticised the timing of the consultation during the summer holiday period and called on the government to extend it.

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The party’s federal environment spokesperson, Sarah Hanson-Young, said the proposal was “nothing but greenwashing” of the significant emissions the Browse project would cause. She called on the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, to “rule out all polluting projects in this pristine ecosystem” on his visit to WA this week.

“Dumping carbon pollution under Scott Reef would put already endangered species like the green sea turtle, pygmy blue whale and the dusky sea snake at serious risk,” she said.

Browse is Australia’s largest untapped gas field. Woodside’s gas project would involve drilling wells within about 3km of the Scott coral reef system and piping gas 900km for processing at the North West Shelf LNG processing plant at Karratha, on the Indigenous heritage-rich Burrup peninsula. It expects it to deliver 11.4m tonnes of LNG a year.

A company spokesperson said it believed “a CCS solution” was a feasible option to abate greenhouse gas emissions from the Browse reservoir.

Woodside’s submission to the department seeks approval to “develop the infrastructure to transport, inject and permanently sequester” up to 3-4m tonnes of CO2 a year in the Calliance storage formation about 4km below sea level and hundreds of kilometres off the coast of Broome.

Woodside claims its proposal would reduce the total scope 1 – or direct – emissions from the Browse to North West Shelf project by 47% (about 53m tonnes).

“The CCS infrastructure has been incorporated into the offshore design to capture and sequester reservoir CO2 emissions that would otherwise be vented,” a Woodside spokesperson said.

The Browse gas project aligned with “key policy statements of both the WA and Australian governments which recognise the pivotal role of natural gas in Australia to 2050 and beyond”, they said.

Louise Morris from the Australian Marine Conservation Society said the organisation was seeking a “fast no” to the project from the department and responsible minister.

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“This proposal for carbon dumping is high cost and high risk,” she said.

“Carbon pollution dumping in the ocean is a proven failure. Globally from other projects operating in the ocean – they have all failed to capture their projected emissions, have run radically over budget and we have seen leaks of CO2.”

A federal environment department spokesperson said that the CCS proposal was undergoing a “standard statutory 10-day public comment period” and that further opportunity to comment would be available during assessment if the government deemed the project a controlled action.

“Our Safeguard reforms were supported across the Parliament by the Greens and crossbench, including rules which set the reservoir carbon dioxide limit for new gas fields at zero from commencement,” a spokesperson for the climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, said.

Geoff Bice, WA campaign lead at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, called Woodside’s CCS proposal “an expensive distraction” that was “environmentally reckless and doomed to fail”.