Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Road Safety) Share this | Hansard source

I just wanted to reiterate that! A joint venture between Chevron, ExxonMobil and Shell, the project started injecting CO2 from the LNG trains in August. At full operation, it will sequester no less than four million tonnes of CO2 each year. The investment in this project is currently at US$2.5 billion.

In the next two years Australia will move its carbon storage efforts offshore, into the Gippsland Basin in the Bass Strait. The CarbonNet Project will be the largest carbon storage project in the world. It will store five million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, taking CO2 extracted from the Latrobe Valley power stations and piping it offshore, where it will be injected beneath the seabed.

As we gear up for offshore carbon storage projects, we need the best environmental and workplace safety protections. We support these offshore petroleum and greenhouse gas storage bills because they recognise an exciting and important form of future emissions reduction and they also acknowledge the appropriate agency to oversee these operations.

The operators of carbon storage use infrastructure similar to that used for petroleum extraction. It is not a risk-free activity, and, when carbon is stored in geology beneath the seabed, the highest standards of environmental protection and operational safety are required. In Australia, we have the offshore geology that is suited to carbon capture and storage, and, in NOPSEMA, we have the agency that will ensure this activity is performed in a way that keeps our environment clean and, even more importantly, our workers safe. I commend the bill to the Senate.