The Angel CCS Joint Venture will collaborate with Yara Pilbara Fertilisers Pty Ltd (Yara Pilbara) to study the feasibility of using carbon capture and storage to decarbonise Yara Pilbara’s existing operations near Karratha in Western Australia.

The Woodside Energy-operated Angel CCS Joint Venture is proposing to develop a large-scale, multi-user CCS hub with the potential to help Australian and international industry decarbonise.

Yara Pilbara has signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Angel CCS Joint Venture to examine whether CCS could be used to decarbonise their current operations in the Burrup Strategic Industrial Area.

Jayne Baird, Vice President - Carbon Solutions, Woodside said the non-binding MoU demonstrated the role CCS could play in decarbonising existing and new industries across the Pilbara.

"A multi-user CCS hub near Karratha would be ideally located to aggregate emissions from various existing industrial emissions sources across the Pilbara, providing users with advantaged access to a local, low-cost and large-scale emissions abatement solution – a competitive advantage as jurisdictions around the world implement emissions reduction targets.

"In addition to decarbonising existing industry, a CCS hub would also have the potential to facilitate the development of new lower-carbon industries, such as the production of hydrogen, ammonia and green steel, supporting the diversification of the Western Australia economy.”

The initial size of the proposed CCS facility is subject to the completion of additional technical, regulatory and commercial studies, but it could have a processing capacity of up to 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum, which would make it one of the largest CCS hubs in Asia-Pacific.