Chevron has awarded GE Oil & Gas a contract worth over $400 million to supply advanced liquefied natural gas (LNG) technology for one of the world’s largest untapped natural gas fields. The Gorgon project will supply cleaner burning natural gas for the growing Asia-Pacific and Australian markets and features the world’s largest project to capture and store carbon dioxide.
A monster of a find: The Gorgon natural gas fields — located at Barrow Island, around 130km off Western Australia — contain around 40 trillion cubic feet of gas, providing around 8 percent of global liquefied natural gas capacity and enough cleaner burning natural gas to power a city of 1 million people for 800 years. Image courtesy of Chevron.
In the audio clip below, GE’s Joe Mastrangelo describes the massive project and GE’s role in it — including the compressors and gas turbines that will be produced for Gorgon in GE’s Florence, Italy and Greenville, South Carolina, US plants.
Between now and 2030 global energy consumption is projected to increase by 44 percent. The demand for natural gas — the cleanest burning fossil fuel — is expected to grow by more than 67 percent by 2030. Globally, the net impact of using Gorgon LNG will result in about 45 million fewer tons of greenhouse gas emissions, when compared against coal. That’s the equivalent of removing two-thirds of all vehicles from Australian roads.
Gorgon is critical to gas supply for domestic Australian use and to meeting Asia’s growing need for energy. To date Gorgon partners have signed sale and purchase agreements for LNG export into Japan and South Korea, the world’s two largest LNG import markets, as well as India and China.
Gorgon’s estimated economic life is at least 40 years from the time of start-up when gas will come online in 2014. Due to its track record of safe and reliable LNG technology leadership and its competitive edge in pioneering CO2 sequestration applications, GE Oil & Gas has been selected to supply technology to drive both the LNG and CO2 components of the Gorgon project.
Deep dive: In simple terms, the technology will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the injection and storage of carbon dioxide underground. The CO2 injection location is on the central eastern coast of Barrow Island near the gas processing plant. This site was selected to maximize the migration distance from major geological faults and limit ground disturbance.
Prior to liquefaction of the natural gas, carbon dioxide will be stripped out and injected into the depleted natural gas wells 1,300-meters deep to ensure its safe storage and the reduction of emissions.
* Read the announcement
* Watch President and CEO Claudi Santiago’s interview with CNBC
* Read coverage from Bloomberg News
* Read previous GE Oil & Gas stories on GE Reports
* Visit the Gorgon Project website
* Read previous GE Oil & Gas news on Gorgon
* Learn more about GE Oil & Gas LNG capabilities
* Read a GE Oil & Gas Factsheet
* Learn more about innovation at GE Oil & Gas
