Beach Energy backs carbon burial as Victoria lifts emissions goals

Beach Energy, one of the largest Victorian gas producers, is betting on carbon-capture technology as a “front-runner” among the solutions needed to deliver the Andrews government’s ambition to combat the industry’s emissions while also meeting the state’s significant continuing need for the fuel.

Victorian Energy Minister Lily D’Ambrosio last weekend unveiled the country’s first gas-substitution “road map”, which scraps requirements for new buildings to be connected to the gas network and includes incentives for homeowners to shift to electric appliances.

Victoria is Australia’s heaviest gas consumer, with 2 million homes and businesses using the fossil fuel for heaters, cooking and hot water. The Andrews government says the scheme will empower Victorians to embrace sustainable alternatives to fossil gas, which presently accounts for 17 per cent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Beach Energy chief executive Morné Engelbrecht said the company shared the government’s ambition to reduce emissions and would seek to be “part of the solution while gas demand in Victoria remains significant”.

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“All forecasts suggest that gas will continue to be a part of the energy mix in Australia for many years, and will be particularly important as more coal exits the system,” he said.

“Pairing gas production with carbon capture and storage is emerging as a front-runner when it comes to delivering substantial reductions to carbon emissions.”

Beach, whose biggest shareholder is media billionaire Kerry Stokes’ Seven Group, is a significant supplier of domestic gas to Victorian homes and businesses from its Otway Gas Plant near Port Campbell and another at Lang Lang, south-east of Melbourne.

The company also has a 33 per cent interest in South Australia’s Moomba carbon-capture and storage (CCS) project, which developer Santos says has the capacity to stash 1.7 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year, making it one of the biggest such projects in the world with the lowest costs.