Session 8. Oral Presentation for: Exploring carbon storage: does Australia have a competitive subsurface advantage in Asia Pacific?

Presented on 27 May 2025: Session 8 Carbon capture and storage is expanding from reducing standalone emissions to offering third-party storage solutions to emitters across borders. Australia features among the top 10 storage hubs by announcements, but the largest storage sites might not always be the best reservoirs for injectivity. Can Australia’s vast subsurface potential offer a competitive advantage over other regional storage hubs? This study explores the relationship between subsurface reservoir systems’ gross properties and the costs associated with carbon storage. Several subsurface parameters influence storage cost, including permeability (k) and reservoir thickness (h). The framework adopted in this study groups storage sites into three classes based on the predicted injectivity index derived from the product of k and h. This will link storage classifications with storage costs associated with exploration and development phases, along with the monitoring, measurement and verification costs throughout the storage project lifecycle. Finally, we evaluate the impact of these findings by assessing Australian storage potential across key storage system opportunities – basins, reservoir systems and sites – and comparing their characteristics and cost with those of other emerging regional hubs in the Asia Pacific region. In doing so, we pose and answer the following questions: (1) Do Australian storage sites provide a competitive advantage in the race to provide cross-border storage opportunities? (2) Would government support or differentiated strategies be required for projects to increase their viability to function as part of a regional storage hub? To access the Oral Presentation click the link below. To read the full paper click here