Opportunities and Limitations for CCS Deployment in Australia: A Techno-regulatory Perspective

To enable the rapid deployment of carbon storage for blue ammonia projects, several key enablers must be in place. These include:

In regions where regulations are still evolving or public confidence is limited, third-party certification can play a critical role in accelerating deployment. Certification and verification—based on internationally recognized standards such as ISO 27914:2017—help ensure the safe and effective geological storage of CO₂.

The benefits of certification and verification for a CO2 storage are various such as:

Certification can be applied across the full lifecycle of a CO₂ storage project. Case studies will be shared to illustrate how third-party certification—aligned with international standards—has successfully supported project development and implementation at various stages.

Over the past 25 years, the CCS community has sought to understand Australia’s potential CO₂ storage resources. Collectively, we have completed a great deal of high-quality work on storage site assessments, yet we are still lacking a comprehensive and defensible national-scale picture of where our storage resources are located, their potential, and an understanding of the scale of CCS industry that can realistically be supported. This understanding is essential to help meet Australia’s - and potentially our region’s - emissions reductions targets, and for effective planning, regulatory oversight and investment – all targeted to more rapidly put Australia at the forefront of the CCS industry.

Under the Australian Government’s Resourcing Australia’s Prosperity initiative, Geoscience Australia, in collaboration with key stakeholders, is leading the development of the National Carbon Dioxide Storage Resource Atlas. The Atlas will provide both national and sub-basin scale data on the location, capacity, injectivity and integrity of Australia’s geological storage resources within a long-lived framework that incorporates existing and new assessments, and allows for refinement as new areas are investigated, new scientific findings come to light, and more CO₂ storage projects become operational.

Our approach is based on the play-based exploration pyramid and is designed to be consistent with the CO₂ Storage Resource Management System. This includes a tiered assessment process, progressing from basin-scale assessments to play then prospect scale evaluations in order to identify play fairways, leads and assess injectivity and capacity in promising plays. These assessments will be assimilated into a big picture,  national-scale play-fairways ‘map’ that will particularly assist with regional planning, source-sink matching and identification of gaps to focus future work. 

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) comprises the countries of Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Singapore, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Brunei, PNG and East Timor. Despite total CO₂ emissions from these nations amounting to nearly 2 gigatons in 2024, only Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia Thailand and East Timor are actively pursuing CCS projects. This presentation briefly summarises the various projects in these nations. Indonesia is committed to achieving net-zero emissions and is actively pursuing the development CCS technology with a vision of establishing itself as a regional CCS hub. This initiative is not limited to domestic CO₂ capture, but also seeks international participation. The Indonesian government estimates a substantial CO₂ storage potential ranging from 400 to 600 gigatons within depleted reservoirs and saline aquifers.  Indonesia has identified 27 CCS/CCUS projects that are currently in the study and preparation phase.  Many of these projects are anticipated to be operational by 2030. To fulfil these ambitious commitments, Indonesia has implemented specific regulations to promote CCS. The first commercial scale project is BP’s well-advanced Tangguh CCUS project in West Papua inaugurated on 24 November 2023, with its first carbon injection expected to take place in 2026. Indonesia is taking advantage of UNFCCC’s Joint Crediting Mechanism (JCM) in partnership with Japan. Malaysia has 2 major regions where it is investigating CCS. The Malay Basin has multiple offshore gas fields in various stages of depletion which are being screened for their potential as storage sites. The most advanced project, however, is in the Sarawak Basin, where Petronas has made its final investment decision FID for capturing CO₂from the Kasawari gas field (25% CO₂) and transporting it via a 135km subsea pipeline to the depleted M-1 gas field. Similar plans are in place for taking CO₂ (17%) from the Lang Lebah field for injection into the Golk depleted field. Malaysia has entered into numerous partnerships and collaborations with global CCS investors in Japan and Korea and has set up the world’s first Sharia-compliant Carbon market. Vietnam has begun site selection in its Song Hong Basin with plans to inject more than 1 mta into a number of promising sites where site characterisation is underway in Blocks 103-104-107. Thailand’s national upstream company PTTEP is gearing up to develop the country’s first carbon capture and storage (CCS) project at its producing Arthit offshore gas field. Preliminary front-end engineering and design (FEED) work has commenced, and the Arthit CCS project is expected to commence operations by 2026.East Timor is undertaking a major CCS project overview for its foundation project to transport CO₂ from Darwin LNG facility for storage in the in Bayu-Undan depleted gas field. The field is well characterised and understood through decades of exploration, appraisal and production data, making it an ideal storage target. Singapore has initiated the S-Hub project plans to capture and securely store CO₂ emissions from Singapore’s industrial sources, with ExxonMobil and Shell selected to work with the Government of Singapore on a CCS value chain capable of capturing and permanently storing deep underground or under the seabed at least 2.5 million tons of CO₂ a year, by 2030. 

Confronting today’s energy realities means finding practical ways to reduce emissions while keeping Australian industry competitive. LNG, steel, cement, and other hard-to-abate sectors face the dual challenge of meeting safeguard requirements and remaining cost-competitive in global markets. CCS is central to addressing this challenge. There is no credible pathway to net zero without large-scale storage. But it must be delivered in a way that is efficient, affordable, and investable. The opportunity lies in reducing costs through innovation, sharing them through multi-user hubs, and offsetting them by providing storage technologies and potentially services across sectors and to Australia’s trading partners.

CO2CRC’s Future Research Program 2026–2035 has been designed with this in mind. Drawing on two decades of applied experience at the Otway International Test Centre, the program will collaboratively re-establish Australia’s research capability and deliver the expertise needed to scale geological CO₂ storage (GCS) with confidence. The eight research themes build capability across the full storage system: improving predictive models of plume behaviour; validating geomechanical thresholds to avoid over-conservatism; advancing cost-effective, environmentally responsible monitoring solutions, including offshore M&V; developing basin-scale planning tools for shared hubs; de-risking infrastructure reuse and well integrity; embedding AI and digital twins to accelerate site evaluation; applying techno-economics to guide investment; and rebuilding the skilled workforce and postgraduate pipeline. Together, these activities reduce uncertainty, drive down costs, and create the confidence needed for investment.

For industry, the program will show how GCS can be deployed competitively, while enabling shared hubs and new low-carbon exports. For government and regulators, it provides assurance that projects are predictable and aligned with national policy. And for Australia as a whole, it builds sovereign capability and creates opportunities to export knowledge, technologies, and services across the Asia-Pacific.