Kasawari Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) Project is being developed off the coast of the state of Sarawak, Malaysia.

The CCS, the first in Malaysia, will be a Kasawari Phase II project. The main project (Kasawari Phase I) involves extracting gas from the gas field.

Petronas Carigali, a wholly owned subsidiary of Malaysian state oil firm Petronas, took the Final Investment Decision (FID) for the development of the CCS project in November 2022.

The project is expected to contribute to reducing carbon dioxide emissions emitted via flaring by 3.3 million tonnes per annum (mtpa), thereby making it one of the largest offshore CCS projects in the world.

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Additionally, the project seeks to support future decarbonisation plans for Malaysia and facilitate Petronas’ progress in achieving Net Zero Carbon Emission targets (NZCE) by 2050.

The Kasawari CCS project is scheduled to start operations by the end of 2025.

Location and Site details

The Kasawari CCS Project will be located in Block SK316, about 200km off Bintulu in Sarawak. The CCS platform will be installed in a water depth of 108m.

The Block SK316 also includes NC3 Gas Field which supplies feedstock gas to the Petronas LNG Complex at Bintulu.

Project details

The Kasawari CCS Project will include the construction and installation of a fixed offshore platform featuring a 14,000-metric tonne (MT) topside and 15,000-MT eight-legged jacket.

The new offshore platform will be linked to the Kasawari Phase one central processing platform through a bridge.

The compressed carbon dioxide will be reinjected into the depleted reservoir at the M1 Field via a 138km long 16-inch subsea pipeline.

Overall, around 71 to 76 million tonnes of carbon dioxide will be reinjected into the M1 field through the pipeline.

The carbon dioxide removal will be conducted leveraging a membrane separation technology with the help of two trains of low pressure booster compressors. An additional two trains will be used for reinjecting the separated carbon dioxide into a dedicated storage site.

The trains will be equipped with PGT25 and PGT25+ gas turbines along with Dry Low Emission Technology to increase fuel efficiency and minimise nitrogen oxide emissions.

Further, the compressors will be cased to reduce footprints compared to other setups.

Petronas’ technologies for the project

For the Kasawari CCS Project, Petronas plans to deploy some of its own technologies.

This will include the use of the PN2 Hollow Fibre Membrane and a cryogenic distillation technology for high CO2 concentrations Cryomin.

The company also plans to use corrosion prediction software for supercritical carbon dioxide for capture and storage components of the CCS project.

Key Contractors involved

The Kasawari CCS Project’s Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) contracts were awarded to Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering (MMHE) and the National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC).

MMHE teamed up with Ranhill Worley, while NPCC selected Technip Energies as its engineering partner.

Both the teams were paid by Petronas for their works.

Petronas awarded the contract of conceptual design and feasibility studies for the CCS project to Xodus, a subsidiary of Oslo-listed offshore contractor Subsea7.

In November 2022, PETRONAS Carigali awarded the Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Installation and Commissioning (EPCIC) services contract for the CCS project to MMHE.

The scope of contract work included the construction of the topside, the eight-legged jacket of the Kasawari CCS platform and the bridge that will link to the Kasawari CPP.

In January 2023, energy technology company Baker Hughes secured the contract of supplying carbon dioxide compression equipment from MMHE.

The compressors will enable the transportation and reinjection of carbon dioxide separated from natural gas into the depleted offshore M1 field via a subsea pipeline.