Origin Energy, Oil Company of Australia, Santos and BP Australia are participating in a transaction, which is said to represent an important milestone in the development of industry initiatives to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The project is situated at Yellowbank, the primary gas production facility for the Denison Trough, located in Western Queensland. The Denison Trough is a Joint Venture between Oil Company of Australia and Santos.

Under contract to Origin Energy, the Joint Venture has installed advanced flaring technology to eliminate the venting of waste methane, a greenhouse gas with a global warming potential 21 times that of carbon dioxide. The remote location of the project and the low quality of the waste gas meant that the energy value of the gas could not be extracted.

However, this innovative contract has enabled the investment in new flaring technology to voluntarily reduce the greenhouse gas impact of the operation.

The Yellowbank project will result in a reduction of approximately 700,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, equivalent to taking all of Canberra's 170,000 passenger cars off the road for a full year. All emission reductions produced from the Yellowbank project have been purchased by BP Australia for use in their BP Global Choice program.

BP will use the emission reductions to provide a greenhouse offset fuel, BP Ultimate, which is the first product accredited by the Australian Greenhouse Office under the Greenhouse Friendly Certification program.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia will be facilitating the transaction of emission reduction units between Origin Energy and BP Australia, commencing in February 2002.