High CO2 increases costs of Woodside’s Browse plans

Woodside’s proposal to commercialise gas from its Browse Basin assets by piping it to processing facilities on the North West Shelf (NWS) could be more costly than expected because of the high carbon dioxide content of the gas. 

The Australian player resuscitated the previously shelved Browse project in January. All the major discovered fields in the Browse Basin are high in CO2 – defined as having a CO2 content of more than 4%. This includes Woodside’s Torosa, Brecknock and Calliance gas condensate fields, which are estimated to have CO2 contents of 4-12%. By contrast, gas at Woodside’s Pluto LNG project has a low CO2 content.