sourcePlan to bury Gorgon's greenhouse gas too risky
23 Nov 2006
A senior WWF scientist today raised serious concerns about Senator Ian Campbell's announcement of $60 million to support the Gorgon development's plan to bury vast quantities of greenhouse gases from Western Australia's Gorgon gas fields in leaky formations beneath Barrow Island.
WWF's Oceans Program Leader, Dr Gilly Llewellyn, said the geology of the area below Barrow Island made it potentially unsafe for the storage of large quantities of greenhouse gas from the Gorgon gas fields, which has a high carbon dioxide content of around 15%.
"Our understanding of the geology of the area proposed for geosequestration, and the likely risks identified by the developers themselves , leads us to question the feasibility and safety of this plan."
Chevron Texaco has proposed to geosequestrate - or bury - Gorgon's carbon dioxide below Barrow Island. In the Environmental Impact Assessment document prepared by the Gorgon Developers, eight out of 20 potential failure modes resulting in the unplanned migration or release of CO2 are assessed as "possible" or "likely".
WWF is particularly concerned that previous wells drilled around the formation and the presence of a natural fault line may cause the carbon dioxide to leak, which would add substantially to Australia's greenhouse gas emissions.
"There are more than 700 wells currently drilled in the area, 50 or more that reach the formation targeted for geosequestration. Add fault lines to the mix and it doesn't sound like this option provides the security we would expect. There appears to be a range of safer options for sequestration in the area and these should be further explored," Dr Llewellyn said.
"The Commonwealth Government should be calling on the proponents to identify more secure carbon dioxide storage options, rather then subsidising the use of our most biologically important islands for risky experiments", Dr Llewellyn said.
The Gorgon proponents have been under pressure to justify the choice of Barrow Island as the location for large liquid natural gas processing facilities because the island is an A-Class nature reserve of global importance.
The project would require shipping channels to be dredged in a fragile tropical coral reef ecosystem that has been identified as providing important breeding habitat for threatened flatback turtles.
"We are not opposed to the development of gas fields if environmentally acceptable options can be found but in this case it seems that the safest option has not been taken," Dr Llewellyn said.
"Right now, the project looks like a 'win' for the wealthy oil and gas companies and a 'lose' for Australia's environment. With ExxonMobil last week reporting a profit of nearly $US10 billion dollars since July, and Chevron's announcement of a third quarter profit of $US5 billion, we hope that additional costs will not be an obstacle to choosing an environmentally sensible option."
Find out more
Dr Gilly Llewellyn, Oceans Program Leader, WWF-Australia
Mobile: 0406 380 801
Paul Gamblin, Marine Policy Officer, WWF-Australia
Mobile: 0410 221 508
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