GORGON GAS PROJECT — CARBON DIOXIDE
INJECTION
787. Hon TIM CLIFFORD to the Minister for Environment:
I refer to the Premier's
media statement from this morning about the Chevron-led Gorgon natural gas
facility on Barrow Island and its greenhouse gas mitigation project having only
just begun operating, despite it being part of initial conditions from 2009.
(1) When will the carbon dioxide injection system be
fully operational? Could the minister please table the time line and the
corresponding estimated emissions reduction from now until the project is fully
operational?
(2) How many tonnes of greenhouse gas pollution has
been emitted since the Gorgon facility began operations?
(3) Will the
state government hold Chevron to account if the company fails again to
adequately sequester carbon dioxide emissions?
(4) Will the
minister please explain why Chevron applied for a new application for the CO2 injection system two and a half years after production
began at Gorgon?
(5) Why did the
Premier announce the start of the greenhouse gas mitigation project instead of
the Minister for Environment, who I understand has carriage of environmental
concerns?
Hon
STEPHEN DAWSON replied:
I thank the honourable member for
some notice of the question.
(1) On 30 July
2019—my birthday, in case anyone wanted to know!—the Department
of Water and Environmental Regulation issued an amendment to licence
L9102/2017/1 to allow for the operation of the injection infrastructure. The
timing and amount of carbon dioxide to be injected is regulated under
Ministerial Statement 800, which states that Chevron is required to inject at
least 80 per cent of the reservoir carbon dioxide removed during gas processing
operations over a five-year rolling average.
(2) Chevron
provides an environmental performance report to the Department of Water and
Environmental Regulation annually, which details the volume of reservoir carbon
dioxide removed in tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
I ask that this part of the question
be put on notice and I will provide the response once the data has been
compiled from each of the past annual reports.
(3) The
Department of Water and Environmental Regulation monitors Chevron's
compliance with ministerial statement and licence conditions and will take any
necessary enforcement action in accordance with
its compliance and enforcement policy. In order to provide a clearly defined
compliance point for the commencement of the injection, in April 2018, I
requested that the Environmental Protection Authority undertake an inquiry
under section 46 of the Environmental Protection
Act 1986 into condition 26 of Ministerial Statement 800. The EPA will provide
me with its report when its inquiry is completed, which is expected to be later
this year.
(4) The
responsibility to apply for a licence amendment to operate the injection infrastructure
lies with Chevron. I understand that until recently, Chevron was experiencing
technical issues with commissioning the injection infrastructure. Once these
matters were resolved, an application for a licence amendment was submitted to
the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation.
(5) As the Gorgon
natural gas facility is a proposal of state significance, it was appropriate
for Hon Mark McGowan, as Premier and Minister for State Development, Jobs and
Trade, to announce this project milestone.