Sidebar: Environmental commitments

Kay Cashman

Petroleum News

The annual report included in the 2024 plan of development filed Nov. 2 noted that the Pikka project was designed to be highly energy efficient and environmentally responsible, which resulted in a project with a top tier GHG emissions intensity when benchmarked against other global pre-development projects.

Additionally, at FID in August 2022, Santos made a commitment to make Pikka Phase 1 net-zero from first oil (Scope 1 and Scope 2, equity share) and as such has been pursuing offset opportunities across the state to deliver on that commitment.

Partner Repsol supports all efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of op-erations. First and foremost, these include the prioritization of emissions reduction and avoidance strategies, such as energy efficiency measures, reducing methane emissions, or any other technological decarbonization solutions, as well as offsetting any residual emissions according to the mitigation hierarchy.

The two working interest owners continue to evaluate emissions reduc-tion opportunities consistent with each party's sustainability commit-ments and initiatives including a market screening assessment of oppor-tunities in Alaska to abate and/or offset Pikka emissions.

Recent legislation passed into law or introduced like SB48/SB49 that en-able state lands to be used for nature-based or carbon capture opportuni-ties are helpful in achieving the objectives of Pikka's working interest owners, Santos' Oil Search (Alaska) and Repsol, with operator OSA holding a 51% interest and Repsol 49%.