The GEODISC Program: Research into Geological Sequestration of CO₂ in Australia

The GEODISC research program is being jointly funded by the Australian government and several of the nation’s gas producers. It is designed to address key technical, commercial, and environmental issues associated with geological sequestration of CO₂ in Australia. Some of the largest point source emitters of CO₂ in Australia are liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants. As some of the gas fields to be developed in the near future have higher CO₂ content than currently producing fields, emissions are projected to increase. GEODISC is currently in year two of its planned 4-year program. The results of the research will have application both within Australia and internationally. The work is being done initially at a regional scale, examining all potential sedimentary basins in Australia, followed by detailed analysis at the most promising sites. Comparison of the sites at the regional scale is being done using deterministic risk analysis. Data from Australian reservoirs show large variance to that used in the published reservoir simulations from Europe. As such, research is being focused into topics, such as storage efficiency, that are considered critical to the successful implementation of the findings from GEODISC. Results to date indicate that there is excellent potential to sequester CO₂ in all of the major sedimentary basins of Australia. Estimates to date from only 49 sites (ignoring the specific economic viability of individual sites), indicate that there is a risked total pore volume capacity to store 1000 times the annual (1998) emissions of CO₂ for Australia. The actual total capacity value of sedimentary basins to sequester CO₂ is likely to be several orders of magnitude higher than this figure.

Key Words: Australia, GEODISC, sequestration, CO₂, storage efficiency, risk.