Moomba Carbon Capture and Storage Project

Moomba Carbon Capture and Storage Project is a Carbon Capture and Storage project located at the Moomba processing facility in the remote Cooper Basin, approximately 800km northeast of Adelaide and 65km southwest of Innamincka in South Australia. It was registered in November 2021.

Carbon Capture and Storage projects under the 2021 methodology involve capturing greenhouse gases that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere (such as from natural gas processing), compressing and transporting them, and injecting them into deep underground geological formations for permanent storage. These projects require strict monitoring and verification protocols to ensure the injected gases do not leak back into the atmosphere.

The Moomba area is known for intense oil and gas extraction operations alongside large-scale pastoral cattle grazing. The region is considered an arid desert environment with very low, highly variable rainfall. The surface landscape features sandy soils, desert loams, and stony gibber plains, while the deep target geology consists of sandstones and carbonaceous shales.

This project is notable for being Australia's first large-scale onshore carbon capture hub. It captures CO2 from the existing Moomba Gas Plant and permanently stores it deep underground in depleted gas reservoirs, specifically the fluvial sandstones of the Toolachee Formation. The project began operations in September 2024 and is designed to safely store up to 1.7 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year. Following its first six months of operation, the project achieved a major milestone by receiving over 600,000 Australian Carbon Credit Units (ACCUs), marking the single largest issuance of ACCUs for an emissions reduction technology in Australia.