Moomba CCS hits 2 million tonnes CO₂ storage milestone

Santos Limited has announced that its Moomba Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project has permanently stored two million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent in just over 18 months of operation, marking a significant milestone for large-scale carbon sequestration in Australia.

The project, located in the Cooper Basin in South Australia, is the country’s largest onshore carbon capture and storage facility and has become one of the most closely watched CCS developments in the Asia-Pacific region due to its scale and early operational performance.

According to Santos, the facility stored approximately one million tonnes of CO₂e in the 2024–25 reporting period alone, contributing materially to reductions in emissions intensity across Australia’s oil and gas sector under the national Safeguard Mechanism framework.

The company said the project has already received more than 1.19 million Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs) for CO₂ injected since start-up through to September 2025, reflecting its role in Australia’s compliance and carbon offset markets.

Santos Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Gallagher said the milestone demonstrated the commercial viability and scalability of carbon capture and storage as a key decarbonisation technology for hard-to-abate sectors such as oil and gas, steel and cement.

He added that the Cooper Basin’s geological formations provide significant long-term storage potential, with Santos estimating its acreage could support injection rates of up to 20 million tonnes of CO₂ per year for up to five decades.

The company said Moomba CCS is already contributing to its emissions reduction targets, with progress reportedly ahead of schedule toward its 2030 Scope 1 and Scope 2 reduction goals. It also highlighted resilience in operations despite recent flooding events in the region.

Industry observers increasingly view projects such as Moomba as central to scaling global carbon storage capacity, particularly as governments and industries look for permanent emissions removal solutions alongside emissions reduction and renewable energy deployment.

Santos said it intends to expand its CCS operations into a broader commercial carbon storage service, potentially offering third-party access to geological storage capacity as demand for large-scale carbon removal grows.