Australia Clears Seabed Site for 443 Million Tons of CO2 Storage

Australia has designated a seabed site off its northern coast permitted to hold up to 443 million metric tons (488 million tons) of carbon dioxide, clearing the way for Japanese energy company Inpex to build one of the largest offshore storage projects ever proposed.

The site, announced by the Australian government, would receive CO2 injections over a 35-year span into a deep saline aquifer known as West Peron. The pipeline would begin in Darwin, the Northern Territory capital on the Timor Sea, and extend 260 kilometers (162 miles) offshore. Inpex says the primary customer would be the nearby Ichthys liquefied natural gas facility, which it majority-owns and which ships most of its gas to Japan. Other companies could later book capacity at the site.

The designation does not authorize injection. Inpex is still conducting environmental impact assessments and must obtain further government licenses before a final investment decision and the start of CO2 injection.

What does the approval change?

For Inpex, it converts an announced concept into a project with a legally recognized storage footprint. For Australia, it signals ministerial backing for carbon capture and storage as a pillar of the country's net-zero pathway.

Resources Minister Madeleine King called the designation an important step. "Carbon capture and storage will play an important role in reducing emissions from hard-to-abate industries, supporting Australia's transition to net zero," King said in a statement. King and the Department of Industry, Science and Resources did not respond to emailed questions from the Associated Press.

The technology itself remains contested. Carbon capture and storage captures, transports and stores CO2 before it reaches the atmosphere. Governments and fossil fuel majors including Exxon Mobil and Shell promote it as a climate bridge; critics argue it prolongs fossil fuel use by promising to capture exhaust later.

The International Energy Agency counts carbon capture, utilization and storage among its climate tools, but its net-zero scenario forecasts the technology will deliver less than 5% of emission reductions by 2050.

What are the ecological objections?

Environmental groups say the project area overlaps with habitats for multiple threatened and migratory species, including dugongs, turtles and seabirds. Chelsea Deng, a campaigner at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said construction alone would be a major disturbance.

"A lot of it involves dredging, drilling, piling into the ocean," Deng said. "It causes sediment disturbance. It causes water quality pollution through the chemical discharge. There's a lot of underwater noise as part of it."

She said routine underwater leak-detection surveys would compound the harm over decades of operation. "This is really impactful and harmful to whales particularly, but it can negatively impact anything from plankton which have been shown to die up to 1.2 kilometers (3/4 miles) away from these seismic impulses," Deng said. "This goes on for decades while this project is underway, because they have to continually monitor these CO2 plumes that they're injecting underground."

Her organization frames the broader buildout as a deferral of the real task. "We see it as a greenwashing tactic that fossil fuel companies are using to green light continued pollution instead of doing the obvious choice of ramping down production and phasing out fossil fuels," Deng said. Inpex did not respond to a request for comment.

Why is Japan driving demand?

Japan, one of the world's top emitters, has committed to cut carbon emissions 60% by 2035 from 2013 levels and 73% by 2040. Steel and cement production, oil refining and shipping anchor its economy, and fossil fuels still generate the vast majority of its energy.

A 2025 briefing from Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry called CCS indispensable. "It enables decarbonization in areas where transitioning to non-fossil fuel alternatives — such as electrification or the use of hydrogen — is challenging," the ministry wrote, tying the technology to stable energy supply and economic growth. The ministry did not respond to emailed questions.

Japanese firms are pursuing parallel projects. Off the coast of Chiba, a large platform marks exploratory drilling for the Tokyo Metropolitan Area CCS project, a joint venture between Inpex, Nippon Steel and others designed to capture CO2 from steel plants and store it offshore. Another Japanese company plans to ship emissions to Malaysia.

The milestone that decides what happens next is regulatory: Inpex's pending environmental impact assessments and the remaining government licenses that stand between the Darwin designation and the first tonne of injected CO2.