Towards 2030: transforming asset emissions in Australian production operations

Abstract

Operators are building roadmaps to reduce emissions at an increasing rate because of initiatives such as the Australian Government’s Safeguard Mechanism and global draft proposals to make emissions from plants auditable. There are three main levers for integrated gas operators: (1) Optimising existing operations to improve efficiency. (2) Designing sustainable developments and modifications. (3) Rebalancing portfolios to lower carbon equivalent intensity assets. Large capital projects are typically proposed as responses to the second lever – such as carbon capture and electrification. However, operating assets hold pressing challenges to reduce ~10–20% of emissions and need to develop viable roadmaps. Through our work in Australian integrated gas industry, we found that the majority of CO₂-e operational emissions reduction opportunities can be addressed by discrete improvement programmes on rotating reliability, process optimisation and methane leak reduction. We discuss how asset operators can drive their Operations, Energy Transition and Digital Functions to realise these significant CO₂-e benefits on a scale of months by: (1) Developing a value-driven decarbonisation strategy for operations, identifying benefits in production, cost and emissions, front-loaded with high impact, rapid 20–30% reduction initiatives that can be realised in the next 1–2 years. (2) Implementing effective and auditable real-time monitoring of plant emissions direct from existing control systems, sensors and imaging techniques. (3) Deriving a programme of tech-enabled optimisation levers and bringing this into new designs for carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS), hydrogen and electrification projects for maximum benefits.