The world’s biggest carbon capture project just hit rock bottom — and not in the way it hoped. Chevron’s latest disclosure on its Gorgon Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) project in Western Australia reveals that it has captured and stored less carbon dioxide in the past year than in any other year since operations began in August 2019. For a facility once hailed as the global flagship for CCS technology, that’s a serious red flag.
Why does this matter? Because CCS has been one of the fossil fuel industry’s favorite talking points — their supposed solution to mitigating climate change. The same industry released a staggering 37.8 billion tonnes of CO₂ into the atmosphere last year alone. That keeps the planet on course for a devastating temperature rise of around 2.6°C above pre-industrial levels, according to Climate Action Tracker. The storyline offered by major oil and gas companies is consistent: keep drilling, keep burning — but fund CCS to clean up the mess later. But is this promise holding up under real-world conditions?
The Gorgon project suggests otherwise. Chevron’s own figures show that the facility captured just 1.33 million tonnes (Mt) of CO₂ during fiscal year 2024–25 — only about a quarter of the 5.22 Mt of CO₂ emitted from the Gorgon and related gas fields feeding the Gorgon LNG plant on Barrow Island. That’s a mere fraction of the site’s total greenhouse gas output.
And here’s one of the industry’s most controversial omissions: Chevron doesn’t have to disclose emissions produced when its gas is burned by consumers — the so-called Scope 3 emissions. These account for roughly 90% of the total footprint associated with the Gorgon LNG project. That means almost all the pollution linked to the project escapes public accountability.
Chevron’s planning documents estimate that if all gas from Gorgon were burned in Asia-Pacific power plants, the resulting emissions would total about 50 Mt of CO₂ per year. By that measure, Gorgon’s 1.33 Mt of captured carbon represents just 2.66% of the project’s overall emissions. Even if the plant operated exactly as designed, capturing 4 Mt annually, it would still only mitigate about 8% of its total output. That’s like claiming victory for scooping a few buckets of water from a flooding river.
This pattern isn’t unique to Chevron. Other massive gas developments — such as Woodside’s Browse project and Inpex’s Bonaparte CCS facility — push similar claims. The latter is supposed to store CO₂ from Inpex’s Ichthys gas field in the Timor Sea’s Browse Basin. Yet critics argue these projects look more like strategies to greenwash expansion plans than genuine climate solutions.
Despite its underperformance, Gorgon remains an emblem for the global CCS industry. The Global CCS Institute’s annual report lists hundreds of projects worldwide, but those figures reflect their “capacity” — not how much CO₂ they actually store. In truth, Gorgon achieved only about one-third of its planned capture target in FY2024–25. When adding all existing CCS projects together, the total amount of CO₂ permanently stored globally hovers around 10 Mt per year — just 0.00026% of fossil fuel emissions worldwide. With such a tiny dent in the problem, can CCS truly reshape the energy sector — or is it just buying time for fossil fuels?
It’s also critical to separate CCS from CCUS — the latter uses captured CO₂ to extract even more oil from depleted wells through enhanced recovery, which ironically perpetuates fossil fuel production.
Still, don’t expect the industry to broadcast these results. The oil and gas narrative continues to promote CCS as proof that continued extraction can coexist with emissions reductions. Yet the data paints a different picture, one that’s hard to ignore.
Meanwhile, renewable energy technologies like solar photovoltaics and grid-scale battery storage have rapidly advanced. Since Chevron started building Gorgon CCS nine years ago, the cost of clean energy generation has plunged, and renewables have surpassed coal in electricity production. CCS, on the other hand, remains expensive, technically challenging, and underperforming.
So, here’s the question: should public funds continue to support CCS projects that capture a sliver of total emissions, or should that investment go toward scalable renewables that already power entire nations more cleanly and cheaply? The debate isn’t just about technology—it’s about where the world chooses to place its bets for the future. What’s your take?
