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Taylor welcomed the announcement, telling Province. This received a boost from the recent
the Sydney Morning Herald that work on the pilot project launched with Japan’s Institute of
CCS methodology was “progressing rapidly”. He Energy Economics to generate blue ammonia
added: “Australia has a comparative advantage in from hydrogen produced from hydrocarbons,
CCS with a number of large geological storage with the resultant CO2 being split between the
basins. Successful trials like this are important to Jubail Methanol plant and EOR at ‘Uthmaniyah.
the development of CCS in Australia, which will Meanwhile, ADNOC last week agreed a
create jobs and lower emissions.” deal with French super-major Total to explore
Beyond the energy sector, however, Austral- opportunities in emissions reductions and
ian companies are mulling other ways to use CCUS. The Emirati firm has plans to cut green-
CCS’ potential to preserve valuable streams of house gas (GHG) intensity by 25% by 2030,
export revenue. while its 800,000 tpy Al Reyadah CCUS facility
The country’s largest miner, BHP, said last is expected to grow rapidly with a target in place
week that it had entered into a five-year mem- to capture 5mn tpy of CO2 by the same date.
orandum of understanding (MoU) with China Oman has long been leading the pack in
Baowu Steel to study ways to slash the steel sec- terms of EOR and the Sultanate is also develop-
tor’s carbon emissions. Under the MoU, BHP ing a commercial-scale hydrogen facility at the
will invest AUD50mn ($36.6mn) in a feasibility port of Duqm as Muscat seeks to diversify its
studying for a CCS project at one of the Chinese economy away from oil and gas.
steelmaker’s largest production sites, as well as To the north, however, flaring remains
using hydrogen to feed its blast furnaces. commonplace in Iraq, though initiatives are
ramping up to monetise gas and reduce emis-
Middle East sions. Meanwhile, it is worth noting that certain
Qatar is the world’s biggest LNG exporter and international operators developing assets in the
like some of its US rivals, it too is looking to Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq have reported
sequester CO2 at its export facilities. The govern- less than 8kg of CO2 equivalent per barrel of oil
ment revealed in October last year it had a plant equivalent (kgCO2e/boe), far below some of the
in operation capable of capturing some 2.1mn region’s top producers. Aramco, for example,
tpy of CO2. It aims to ramp up the plant’s capac- last year reported an upstream carbon intensity
ity to 5mn tpy by 2024 and 7mn tpy by 2027, hail- of 10.1 kgCO2e/boe.
ing the project as the largest CCS investment in
the Middle East and North Africa. Latin America
Enhanced oil recovery (EOR) is also at the Efforts to develop carbon capture and storage
forefront of the Middle East’s carbon, capture, (CCS) capacity are at a relatively early stage in
utilisation and storage (CCUS) push, with the Latin America. The two countries in the region
circular carbon economy firmly in the sights of that show the most promise on this front are
NOCs Saudi Aramco and ADNOC. Mexico and Brazil, which have estimated CO2
Aramco has been working on CO2-based storage potential of 100bn tonnes and 4 trillion
EOR at the ‘Uthmaniyah field in Eastern tonnes respectively. Both have explored their

Week 46 19•November•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P7