Santos chief Kevin Gallagher says South Australia can be first carbon-negative state

The boss of the state’s biggest company, gas producer Santos, says South Australia can hit a nation-leading emissions target.

Santos chief Kevin Gallagher says South Australia can be the only net-negative greenhouse gas emissions state – thanks to his firm’s pioneering carbon capture and storage scheme at Moomba.

In an industry speech, Mr Gallagher said the Moomba project was already on track to stores 1.7m tonnes per year of captured carbon dioxide, depending on availability from Santos’s gas processing plant in the Cooper Basin.

This was the equivalent of about 28 per cent of the total emissions reduction delivered in Australia’s entire electricity sector in 2023.

Santos chief executive officer and managing director Kevin Gallagher. Supplied

The Cooper Basin has the capacity to store up to 20m tonnes of CO2 per year for up to 50 years.

“South Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions for 2022 were 15.8 million tonnes. So, South Australia could store more carbon than it emits, making it a net negative carbon state,” Mr Gallagher told South Australian Chamber of Mines and Energy in a speech on Wednesday night.

“I don’t believe any other state could make that claim. This new industry is an important story for South Australia and the country but, importantly, it’s a global story.”

Mr Gallagher, whose firm will celebrate its 70th anniversary on Friday night, cited the International Energy Agency’s assessment that “more projects are needed to achieve the required carbon capture capacity to reach global net zero targets”.

“I believe this achievement will be historic for our state as well, laying the foundation

for a new modern energy industry that could extend the life of the Cooper Basin – its

jobs and economic benefits – for another 50 years or more,” he said.

Mr Gallagher said SA was a “stable, reliable, jurisdiction where we are confident to invest”, declaring bipartisan support was “critical for our industry”, Santos, suppliers and the thousands it employed.

Santos and partner Beach Energy on October 17 revealed they were injecting captured carbon dioxide into depleted reservoirs at Moomba at a rate that has them on course to meet their targeted 1.7 million tonnes per annum.

At the time, Mr Gallagher said the completion of work at Moomba had busted the myth that carbon capture and storage does not work.

Moomba CCS commissioning engineer Cangie Wu, at the plant. Picture: Santos.

Moomba CCS commissioning engineer Cangie Wu said she was proud to be part of a new project for Santos to “just capture something that’s been in the atmosphere”, then “putting it in the ground so we can do something for the environment”.

“It’s all about trying to do your bit to make things better. And I think this is just proving that … we’re capturing [greenhouse gases] and actually making a difference,” she said.