Glencore welcomes Australian govt's investments for clean future

18th September 2020 By: Marleny Arnoldi - Deputy Editor Online

Diversified miner Glencore has welcomed the Australian federal government’s decision to invest A$1.9-billion in a suite of new and emerging energy technology to position the country for a low-emission future.

To this end, metals and minerals will play a key role in the global transition to a low-emission future.

Glencore’s commodities – copper, coal, nickel, cobalt and zinc – are used in transport, communications, electricity generation, electric vehicle batteries and medical devices.

A statement by the miner reads that the expansion of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation to back new technologies, including carbon capture, use and storage, or CCUS, will support significant emission reductions in the country.

Glencore also welcomes the Australian government’s A$50-million investment in a CCUS development fund, after the International Energy Agency and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change identified CCUS as an essential technology in the global effort to meet climate change goals.

The miner states that it has long been a supporter of this technology as a means to reduce emissions from fossil fuels and also service the hydrogen economy.

Glencore says its Carbon Transport and Storage Company project is Australia’s most advanced onshore carbon capture project, seeking to capture carbon dioxide from a coal-fired power stations and store it deep underground in the southern Surat basin, in Queensland.

The project is well advanced, with a testing programme on appraisal wells for the storage currently under way. Glencore expects to make a final investment decision on the A$230-million project in 2021.

The storage component of the project provides a potential pathway to an industrial-scale storage hub in Queensland that is capable of servicing multiple industrial users.

Glencore believes its project can make a meaningful contribution to the national effort in delivering significant emission reductions.