Woodside's Burrup hub in Australia has delivered what could be the world's first carbon-offset condensate cargo to trader Trafigura.
The milestone is part of work by both companies — and Woodside's Pluto LNG export plant partners Kansai Electric and Tokyo Gas — to measure and reduce carbon emissions from production, storage and shipping in and from Western Australia.
The emissions related to the 650,000-barrel cargo are being cut through a combination of efficiency measures and carbon offsetting.
Trafigura is calculating shipping emissions and working with the unnamed shipowner to minimise these.
Woodside is responsible for calculating carbon output from extraction and storage.
Asia-Pacific projects
"High-quality" carbon offsets have been sourced from nature-based projects located in the Asia-Pacific region, independently validated and verified, Woodside said.
Woodside's vice president of marketing, trading and shipping Mark Abbotsford said this could be the first carbon-offset condensate cargo traded globally, demonstrating opportunities for this process.
"The transaction brought all the participants in the joint venture responsible for producing the condensate together with the customer, a global trading company, in support of our recently announced emissions reduction targets," he added.
Abbotsford said the deal allowed it to gain an understanding of the carbon market in its early phases.
New agreement
The two sides have also signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MOU) to explore opportunities for carbon management in the marketing of carbon-offset condensate, crude oil and LPG in the future.
"The MOU is consistent with Woodside’s and Trafigura’s respective objectives to explore a market for carbon-offset products over the long term and reduce emissions intensity across the value chain," Abbotsford added.
Dmitri Croitor, global head of naphtha and condensates for Trafigura, said the shipment was Trafigura's first using carbon offsetting.
"We’ve set ambitious targets to reduce our operational greenhouse-gas emissions and by working with Woodside, which has similar ambitions, it is now possible to offset emissions associated with the cargo from wellhead to delivery," he added.
"We are developing this offering for other oil products for our customers around the world."
Trafigura has already pledged to set a target for reducing its indirect, or Scope 3, emissions by 2023.
