Cutaway of GE gas turbine to be used at Gorgon Field project.

Gorgon Field sequestration project four times the size of next largest

The Energy Information Agency projects that global demand for cleaner-burning natural gas will grow by more than 67 percent by 2030. But producing liquified natural gas (LNG) pumps an enormous amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. While several processes have been developed to find an alternative home for the CO2 byproduct, none are as big as the one announced by GE and Chevron today.

GE Oil & Gas announced today that it landed a $400 million dollar contract to deploy its liquefied natural gas production and carbon sequestration technologies at Chevron’s recently-discovered Gorgon Field, off the western coast of Australia. The project will be the largest carbon capture and sequestration project ever developed.

The Gorgon natural gas fields are located at Barrow Island, around eighty miles off Western Australia. Gas will be extracted and delivered via subsea and underground pipelines to gas treatment and liquefaction facilities on Barrow Island’s south east coast.

Prior to liquefaction, GE will strip the carbon dioxide created during the production process and injected it into depleted natural gas wells 1,300-meters deep on Barrow Island. Six surface operating, 15 MW electric-motor driven GE Compression Trains will be deployed on site.

GE anticipates that it will inject as much as four times more carbon dioxide than any other project in the world, reducing on-site emissions by approximately 40%.

Currently estimated to hold 40 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to power a city of 1 million people for 800 years, the Gorgon Field is one of the world’s largest natural gas projects.

Chevron Australia estimates the Gorgon field will produce economically-viable natural gas for at least 40 years.