ExxonMobil and BP executives expressed optimism about the oil firm’s carbon capture projects in Indonesia, suggesting they provided a solution to the global need to balance emissions reduction and energy security.
Anja-Isabel Dotzenrath, BP's executive vice president for low-carbon energy, said a carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) project under development at the Tangguh liquefied natural gas field in eastern Indonesia will re-inject 30 million tonnes of CO2 into a reservoir.
Dotzenrath said the project would halve carbon emissions at Tangguh, which is Indonesia's biggest gas field and accounts for around a fifth of the country's gas output. Japan's Mitsubishi and Inpex and China's CNOOC are also investors in the LNG project.
BP announced its CCUS project in Tangguh in 2021 as part of a $3 billion expansion of the gas field expected to increase its production by 2027.
"And that's just the beginning. There's potential to store much more, up to 1.8 Gt," Dotzenrath said on the International Convention on Indonesian Upstream Oil and Gas in Bali.
"This means that together with our investment, the CCUS project has the potential to create one of the lowest carbon intensity LNG facilities in the industry, not just in the Asia Pacific region, but in the world," Dotzenrath said. "We are confident that we can turn the Tangguh CCUS ... into Indonesia's first CCS hub."
Speaking at the same event, Carole Gall, president of ExxonMobil Indonesia, said its own CCS project in the Sunda and Asri basins was "going really well". The company in November last year inked a deal with Indonesian state oil and gas company Pertamina to jointly develop a carbon storage hub.
The high number of depleted oil and gas reservoirs and saline aquifers across the Indonesian archipelago makes the country a potential hub for CCUS. While CCUS technology remains very expensive and not commercially scalable, it is seen as crucial for decarbonizing the global oil and gas industry.
Except for ExxonMobil, Pertamina has embarked on several CCUS projects with other foreign firms, including Japanese energy companies Japex and JOGMEC.
Jodi Mahardi, Indonesia's deputy coordinating minister for maritime affairs and investment, said Indonesian President Joko Widodo is expected to sign a new regulation on CCUS within the next month or two to boost the sector.
