President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has inaugurated the development of a project for the capture, utilization, and storage of carbon (CCUS) in West Papua province operated by British Petroleum (BP). The West Papua CCUS in West Papua is the first carbon storage project in Indonesia.
According to the Minister for Energy and Mineral Resources Arifin Tasrif in his official statement on Friday (24/11), the CCUS project has the potential for storing up to 1.8 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide.
In September, a Ministry official stated that BP will invest $2.6 billion into the project, with the first carbon injection expected to take place in 2026. BP did not provide the investment figure.
This new project comes at the conclusion of the Tangguh Train 3 Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) project by BP valued at $4.83 billion in West Papua last month.
Indonesia is interested in developing the CCUS project and the carbon capture and storage project (CCS). Indonesia is estimated to have the capacity for storing 8 gigatonnes of carbon in depleted oil and gas reservoirs, and 400 gigatonnes in salt aquifers.
Data from the Energy Ministry shows that there is currently 15 CCS and CCUS projects in various stages of preparation with a combined investment of almost $8 billion including the BP project.
Although the international oil and gas industry is in the perfect position for enhancing the technology to assist in achieving the clean zero emission target in 2050, the International Energy Agency, has stated in a report on Thursday that it is probably not a suitable main solution economically to reduce global warming if the production of oil and gas is not reduced.
During the same working visit to West Papua, Jokowi also inaugurated the construction of a fertilizer plant in Fakfak that was designed to produce 1.15 million metric tonnes of urea fertilizer and 825.000 metric tonnes of ammonia fertilizer.
The investment in the plant is estimated to total Rp. 30 trillion and its construction is expected to be completed in 2038, according to a statement from the Presidential Palace on Thursday evening.
West Papua Now 