A brand-new report published by the CSIRO’s Gas Industry Social and Environmental Research Alliance (GISERA) provides an assessment of whole-of-life greenhouse gas emissions associated with the Queensland coal seam gas (CSG) to liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry.

GISERA researchers set out to analyse the greenhouse gas emissions of a CSG-LNG project in Queensland, and the relative climate benefits of using natural gas in place of thermal coal as fuel for generation of electricity in Australia.

Uniquely, this research program used commercial-in-confidence data from a CSG to LNG project in the Surat Basin to provide, for the first time ever, accurate estimates of life cycle GHG emissions associated with CSG-LNG operations in Australia.

As published in the report, ‘Whole of Life Greenhouse Gas Emissions Assessment of a Coal Seam Gas to Liquefied Natural Gas Project in the Surat Basin, Queensland, Australia’, the researchers identified that greenhouse gas emissions associated with CSG production, compression, dehydration, water treatment and liquefaction represented 1.4 per cent of likely future production for this CSG-LNG project (576 Petajoules/year).

The primary activities in the CSG-LNG supply chain contributing to emissions in Australia were electricity use on-site for CSG extraction, and combustion of natural gas for electricity for LNG production.

Outside Australia, the primary activities contributing to emissions were combustion of natural gas which represented 83 per cent of total emissions when all processes from well head through liquefaction, shipping, regasification and combustion were considered.

Fuel switching from black thermal coal to Queensland coal seam gas for electricity generation using high efficiency closed cycle gas turbines in Australia – avoiding liquefaction, shipping and regasification – represents a potential reduction in GHG emissions of around 50 per cent.

GISERA Director, Dr Damian Barrett, said the results of this latest research aligned with other studies completed by the CSIRO and GISERA in Queensland and other parts of Australia to understand methane and other GHG emissions associated with unconventional onshore gas activities.

“These results are consistent with other CSIRO studies in this region which suggest that the fugitive emissions component of the total greenhouse gas emissions identified in this latest study are at the lower end of the scale,” Dr Barrett detailed.

“The climate benefits of using natural gas in place of thermal coal for electricity generation are generally accepted when fugitive emissions are less than three per cent of total production.”

“Results of this latest research underline the potential climate benefits of using gas in place of coal to generate electricity, particularly when using high efficiency closed cycle gas turbines,” he said.

GISERA is a collaboration between CSIRO, Commonwealth and state governments and industry established to undertake publicly-reported independent research.