Australian oil and gas company Pilot Energy and Knutsen NYK Carbon Carriers (KNCC) have signed a memorandum of understanding to work on offering an integrated solution for marine transportation and offshore injection of CO2 at the Cliff Head CCS Project off Australia.
The two companies will develop solutions to enable large-scale industrial emitters to transport via ship ambient temperature LCO2, inject, and permanently store CO2 at the Cliff Head CCS project. The Cliff Head project is an integral component of the Mid-West Clean Energy project.
During the initial three-year term of the MoU, Pilot and KNCC will work together to assess the technical and commercial solution to initially target the provision of a CO2 transportation service to emitters based in the Western Australian Kwinana Industrial Area. If any costs are incurred, each party will bear its costs.
Cliff Head CCS involves the conversion of the operating Cliff Head offshore oil field into a permanent CO2 storage operation capable of storing over 1mmtpa of CO2 through 2050 with over 50m tonnes of potential total storage capacity.
Nippon Yusen Kaisha of Japan and Norway’s Knutsen Group of Norway established the KNCC joint venture company in January 2022. The JV firm was formed to provide marine transportation of CO2 and the injection of the gas into offshore reservoirs.
KNCC is developing a liquefied CO2 marine transportation and storage business worldwide using its propriety containment system technology LCO2-EP which allows the transport of liquified CO2 at ambient temperatures.
“We are extremely enthusiastic about this new collaboration and being able to offer a one-stop-shop solution, in conjunction with Svante, for the capture, transportation, and permanent storage of CO2 emissions, enabling Pilot to support a major reduction in industrial CO2 emissions for such an important industrial centre as Kwinana,” said Brad Lingo, Pilot’s chairman.
“We will contribute to Cliff Head CCS Project’s realization by utilizing our cost-efficient, flexible, and scalable LCO2-EP technology to transport the LCO2 in ambient temperature and inject it to the CO2 reservoirs offshore from our CO2 carriers,” said Anders Lepsøe, CEO of KNCC.
