Scientists Discover Fossil of Extinct Early Bird That Could Stick Out Its Tongue

By CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES DECEMBER 27, 2021

Reconstruction of Brevirostruavis macrohyoideus with its mouth open to show its long tongue that was used to catch insects or obtain nectar from cone-bearing plants. Credit: IVPP

A new fossil skeleton of an extinct species of bird from northeastern China that lived alongside dinosaurs 120 million years ago unexpectedly preserves a bony tongue that is nearly as long as its head.

The skull is very well preserved, showing that it had a relatively short snout and small teeth, with extremely long and curved bones for the tongue (called the hyoid apparatus).

Scientists from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Texas at Austin have named this bird Brevirostruavis macrohyoideus, which means “bird with a short snout and big tongue.”

Their discovery was published in Journal of Anatomy on December 1, 2021.

We learn quickly as children to stick out our tongues, but most reptiles and birds do not have large muscular tongues like humans. Birds instead have a set of rod-shaped elements made of bone and cartilage comprising the hyoid apparatus that sits in the floor of their mouth.

In birds with larger tongues like ducks and parrots, they use their tongue to move food around in their mouth, get food into their mouth, and help to swallow food. Some birds today like hummingbirds and woodpeckers have a bony tongue as long or longer than their skulls.

Photograph and drawing of the skull of the extinct Cretaceous enantiornithine bird Brevirostruavis macrohyoideus, with the curved bones of the long tongue highlighted in orange. Credit: IVPP

This extinct short-snouted, big-tongued bird is the earliest example of a bird being able to stick its tongue out. Of course, this feature makes one wonder why this bird would be sticking its tongue out. The scientists hypothesized that the bird might have used this feature for catching insects in the same way that living woodpeckers use their tongues to get insects out of holes in bark, wood, and tree branches. Alternatively, the bird might have been feeding on pollen or nectar-like liquids from plants in the forest where it lived. No stomach contents were found with this skeleton.

This short-snouted, big-tongued bird is part of an extinct group of birds called enantiornithines or “opposite” birds. They were the most successful group of birds during the Cretaceous Period (between 66 and 145 million years ago), with fossils found around the world.

“We see a lot of variation in the size and shape of the skulls of enantiornithine birds and that probably reflects the great diversity of the foods they ate and how they caught their food. Now with this fossil, we see that it’s not just their skulls, but their tongues that also vary,” said Dr. WANG Min, co-author of the study.

The researchers previously showed that these early birds had fairly rigid skulls like their dinosaur relatives. This feature set some evolutionary and functional restrictions on early birds. “Perhaps the only way for them to fundamentally change through evolution how they caught their food and what food they ate was to shorten their skull in this case and to make the tongue bones much longer,” said lead author Dr. LI Zhiheng.

The long, curved hyoid apparatus in the fossil bird is made of bones called ceratobranchials. Living birds also have such bones in their hyoid, but it is the epibranchial bones, absent in early birds, that are very long in birds like woodpeckers.

“Animals experiment evolutionarily with what they have available. This bird evolved a long tongue using the bones it inherited from its dinosaur ancestors, and living birds evolved longer tongues with the bones that they have. This situation demonstrates the power of evolution, with birds using two different evolutionary pathways to solve the same problem of making a long tongue to stick out of their mouths,” said co-author Dr. Thomas Stidham.

Reference: “Novel evolution of a hyper-elongated tongue in a Cretaceous enantiornithine from China and the evolution of the hyolingual apparatus and feeding in birds” by Zhiheng Li, Min Wang, Thomas A. Stidham, Zhonghe Zhou and Julia Clarke, 1 December 2021, Journal of Anatomy.
DOI: 10.1111/joa.13588

 

Scientists Succeed in Culturing the Pygmy Zebra Octopus – The Size of a Grain of Rice When They Hatch

By EMILY GREENHALGH, MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY DECEMBER 24, 2021

A pygmy zebra octopus hatchling in the Cephalopod Mariculture Lab at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole. These octopuses are about the size of a grain of rice when they hatch. They reach full size (about the size of a table grape) within six months. Credit: Tim Briggs

For generations, scientists have relied on a handful of organisms to study the fundamentals of biology. The usual suspects—fruit flies, zebrafish, and mice, among others—all have short lifespans, small body size, can be bred through multiple generations in the laboratory, and have been developed for genetic investigations. These research organisms leave out a whole swath of biological diversity and scientists have lacked access to a cultured octopus laboratory organism—until now. Introducing the pygmy zebra octopus (O. chierchiae).

In a new paper published in the journal Frontiers in Marine Science, researchers from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) introduce scientists to successful culturing methods for O. chierchiae that were developed at the MBL.

“The pygmy zebra octopus has certain biological features that make them attractive and more appropriate for laboratory research, compared to other octopuses,” says Bret Grasse, MBL’s manager of Cephalopod Operations and co-author on the paper.

Adult pygmy zebra octopus (Octopus chierchiae). Credit: Tim Briggs

Also known as the “lesser Pacific striped octopus,” the pygmy zebra octopus shares many useful similarities with other research organisms—such as small adult body size—but it also has unique features that distinguish it from other cephalopods (the group of animals that include octopus, squid, and cuttlefish).

O. chierchiae adult in a shell looking at a snail. Credit: Tim Briggs

“The majority of octopuses are ‘live fast, die young.’ They breed once and then immediately start to senesce and age and then die relatively quickly,” says Anik Grearson, former MBL intern and co-lead author on the paper. Unlike other octopus species, a female O. chierchiae lays several clutches of 30-90 eggs over her reproductive period.

Anik Grearson, co-lead author on the paper, leans over a tank in the Cephalopod Mariculture Lab at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole. Credit: Marine Biological Laboratory

“We can mate them and know exactly when they’ll lay their eggs. We know exactly how long they’ll incubate and we can raise offspring at a relatively high survivorship rate compared to other octopuses,” says Grasse. Add that to its small size, sexual dimorphism, and predictable breeding schedule and it’s easy to see why O. chierchiae is an ideal candidate for further exploration and research.

Reference: “The Lesser Pacific Striped Octopus, Octopus chierchiae: An Emerging Laboratory Model” by Anik G. Grearson, Alison Dugan, Taylor Sakmar, Dominic M. Sivitilli, David H. Gire, Roy L. Caldwell, Cristopher M. Niell, Gül Dölen, Z. Yan Wang and Bret Grasse, 13 December 2021, Frontiers in Marine Science.
DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2021.753483

 

Science Made Simple: What Are High Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas?

By U.S. DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY DECEMBER 27, 2021

High energy density (HED) laboratory plasmas are perhaps the most extreme states of matter ever produced on Earth. Normal plasmas are one of the four basic states of matter, along with solid, gases, and liquids. But HED plasmas have properties not found in normal plasmas under ordinary conditions. For example, matter in this state may simultaneously behave as a solid and a gas. In this state, materials that normally act as insulators for electrical charges instead become conductive metals. To create and study HED plasmas, scientists compress materials in solid or liquid form or bombard them with high energy particles or photons.

Invisible infrared light from the 200-trillion-watt Trident Laser enters from the bottom to interact with a one-micrometer thick foil target in the center of the photo, generating a high energy density plasma. Credit: Image courtesy of Joseph Cowan and Kirk Flippo, Los Alamos National Laboratory

Scientists’ ability to create and control extreme conditions in laboratories on Earth helps us understand black holes and other events in the universe. This research also supports efforts to make fusion power a reality on Earth, harnessing the processes that happen within the Sun to produce energy here. Scientists working with HED plasmas address the basic laws of nature. But they also work on practical applications; research on HED plasmas can help us understand how to make radioactive isotopes. These radioisotopes have many practical applications. For example, they can be used to create images of the inside of our bodies for understanding medical issues, or in industry for understanding how materials wear out with use.

High Energy Density Plasma Facts

• High energy density plasmas are an exotic state of matter found in astrophysical events such as the birth of stars and brown dwarfs, in laboratory fusion experiments, and in nuclear weapons explosions.
• Scientists generate HED plasmas using high-power petawatt-class lasers, which generate instantaneous power levels equivalent to the output of the entire U.S. electrical grid.
• HED plasmas are created in the National Ignition Facility (NIF), which is the most energetic laser in the world with 2 megajoules (the energy consumed by 20,000 100-watt light bulbs in one second) of light energy delivered in 16 nanoseconds.
• Applications enabled by HED plasmas in the form of compact, inexpensive sources of radiation have applications in science, industry, and medicine.
• Using NIF’s 192 lasers at a target of hydrogen isotopes has been compared to throwing a baseball from the pitcher’s mound at San Francisco’s Oracle Park into the strike zone at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles, some 400 miles away.

DOE Office of Science: Contributions to High Energy Density Laboratory Plasmas

The Department of Energy supports HED research and development because the associated applications address several DOE missions. Support for HED plasma research originated with the U.S. nuclear weapons program. Following the invention of the laser, HED research expanded beyond nuclear weapons. The United States manages HED activities under DOE’s National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) and the Fusion Energy Sciences program in the DOE Office of Science. The Office of Science focuses on developing the scientific basis for understanding and producing HED plasmas.

 

Contorted oceanic plate caused complex quake off New Zealand's East Cape

by University of Tsukuba

Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Subduction zones, where a slab of oceanic plate is pushed beneath another tectonic plate down into the mantle, cause the world's largest and most destructive earthquakes. Reconstructing the geometry and stress conditions of the subducted slabs at subduction zones is crucial to understanding and preparing for major earthquakes. However, the tremendous depths of these slabs make this challenging—seismologists rely mainly on the rare windows into these deeply buried slabs provided by the infrequent but strong earthquakes, termed intraslab earthquakes, that occur within them.

In a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters, a research team led by the University of Tsukuba used seismic data generated by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake that occurred off the northeasternmost tip of New Zealand's North Island on March 4, 2021, detected by seismometers around the world, to investigate the particularly unusual geometry and stress states of the subducted slab deep below the surface in this region.

"The 2021 East Cape earthquake showed a complex rupture process, likely because of its location at the boundary between the Kermadec Trench to the north and the Hikurangi Margin to the south," lead author of the study Assistant Professor Ryo Okuwaki explains. "To investigate the geometry of the stress field and earthquake rupture process, we used a novel finite-fault inversion technique that required no pre-existing knowledge of the area's faults."

This investigation revealed multiple episodes of rupture, generated by both compression and extension in the subsurface at different depths. These episodes included shallow (~30 km) rupture due to extension perpendicular to the trench as would typically be expected in a subduction zone. Unexpectedly, however, the deep (~70 km) rupture occurred with compression parallel to the subduction trench. 

"Two alternative or inter-related factors may explain the unique rupture geometry of the 2021 East Cape earthquake," senior author Professor Yuji Yagi explains. "First, subduction of a seamount or multiple seamounts along with the subducted slab could contort the slab and create local changes in the stress field. Second, the transition from the Kermadec Trench to the Hikurangi Margin, where the subducted oceanic crust is considerably thicker, could create the local conditions responsible for the unusual faulting pattern."

Because of the rarity of deep intraslab earthquakes in this region, distinguishing between these two possibilities is currently challenging, and indeed both factors might play significant roles in creating the complex stress field revealed by the East Cape earthquake. Additional earthquakes off the northeast coast of New Zealand in the future may shed further light on this deep tectonic mystery.Investigating links between three earthquakes in New Zealand

More information: Ryo Okuwaki et al, Illuminating a Contorted Slab With a Complex Intraslab Rupture Evolution During the 2021 Mw 7.3 East Cape, New Zealand Earthquake, Geophysical Research Letters (2021). DOI: 10.1029/2021GL095117

Journal information: Geophysical Research Letters 

Provided by University of Tsukuba 

#FRACKQUAKE

Magnitude 4.5 earthquake strikes Permian Basin - USGS

Reuters
Dec 28, 2021 

An earthquake of magnitude 4.5 struck near Stanton in West Texas on Monday, the US Geological Survey reported.

The quake struck at a depth of 7.8 km (4.8 miles), USGS said.

The earthquake happened in the Permian Basin, home of the largest shale oil and gas field. This is the second strongest earthquake in West Texas in the last 10 years, MRT news reported https://www.mrt.com/news/local/article/4-3-magnitude-earthquake-shakes-north-Stanton-16732909.php

After a series of smaller earthquakes in recent months, the state’s energy regulator, Texas Railroad Commission in September set limits on the volume of waste water that oil and gas producers could inject underground.

 (Reporting by Shivani Tanna in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)

Public safety minister calls on Twitter Canada to address 'abusive' tweet directed at CMA president

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Marco Mendicino writes letter saying tweet poses risks to

health-care workers

Richard Raycraft · CBC News · Posted: Dec 28, 2021 

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, shown in the House of Commons on Dec. 9, has written to Twitter Canada saying he disagrees with the company's decision not to remove a tweet sent to Canadian Medical Association president Dr. Katharine Smart that he calls threatening. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino is calling on Twitter Canada to address a tweet sent to Canadian Medical Association president Dr. Katharine Smart, saying the tweet "poses risks to the health and safety of health-care workers."

His letter, addressed to Twitter Canada's managing director, Paul Burns, concerns a tweet sent to Smart on Dec. 22 by an account under the handle "@AsktheBrownDoc1." 

"Are you scared you are next @KatharineSmart?" the tweet reads. "A group of us who can't stand you have been seeing you and your family for weeks ... and already have some great footage ... just biding our time for the perfect time!"

In his letter, Mendicino said the tweet is threatening.

"I am writing to express serious concerns regarding an abusive tweet that was recently posted to Canadian Medical Association President Dr. Katharine Smart's Twitter timeline and which poses risks to the health and safety of healthcare workers in the discharge of their professional responsibilities," the letter reads.

The letter says Smart reported the tweet to Twitter but that the social media company ruled it did not violate its policies. The company did not remove the tweet.

However, the Twitter account behind it appears to have been deleted.

Mendicino said he disagrees with Twitter's decision not to remove the tweet. 

• Liberals introduce bill to provide sick pay, ban intimidation of patients and health-care workers

"I am asking you to reconsider your decision to leave the tweet on your platform, given that it appears to directly contravene your rules, and because allowing such comments to be published also puts healthcare workers at risk of further abuse and intimidation," Mendicino said in the letter.

"If left published and unchecked, the content in question could negatively impact the ability of healthcare workers to inform and provide advice to the public regarding the pandemic," he continued.

The letter mentions that Smart reported the tweet to the police.

Mendicino mentioned that Bill C-3, legislation that recently received royal assent, will soon make it a criminal offence for someone to impede a health professional from performing their duties.

"Parliament's speedy passage of Bill C-3 reflects the urgency of this issue," Mendicino said. "However, we cannot rely alone on the criminal law to solve the problem."

"Social media platforms equally have a role to play in rooting out harmful online content. The December 22, 2021 tweet directed at Dr. Smart, as well as many others within the healthcare sector, highlights the significance of that role," he continued.

• Federal legislation protecting health-care workers welcomed, say P.E.I. unions

In a statement to CBC News, a Twitter Canada spokesperson said, "Abuse, harassment and hateful conduct have no place on our service and are against the Twitter Rules.

"As a company, promoting healthy participation on Twitter is our top priority," the statement continues. "We recognize the concerns health practitioners have regarding social media, and we are committed to creating healthy experiences on Twitter."

CANADA

Is the 'she-cession' over? Statistics point to recovery, experts aren't so sure

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55-plus the only group of Canadian women that still haven't

returned to pre-pandemic employment levels

The Canadian Press · Posted: Dec 28, 2021 

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionate toll on the finances and career prospects of Canadian women. While recent data suggests a jobs recovery for working age women, experts say that the statistics fail to capture that many are still struggling to balance work and family life. (Pra Chid/Shutterstock)

When Alicia Dempster started her maternity leave in June 2019, she never dreamed that she would still be at home two and a half years later.

The Stouffville, Ont., woman fully intended to return to her job as an event planner for an area municipality after 15 months at home caring for her infant son and his toddler brother.

But COVID-19 derailed those plans. When her planned return-to-work date rolled around, the complete absence of public events meant the job she once had no longer existed. The alternative work her employer offered her — cutting grass and picking weeds with the parks department — seemed a poor match for her skills, so she opted to stay home "just a little longer."

Now, her sons are five and two and a half and the Omicron variant is on the rise.

• Facing a 'she-cession,' federal child care cash key for working women & Canada's economy, says expert

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Like many Canadian women, Dempster is not only concerned about how long she's been out of the workforce, but should she find a job, she knows she'll be juggling the demands of work and parenting, including COVID tests and mandatory isolation every time one of her children gets a cough or the sniffles.

While recent data suggests a jobs recovery for working age women, the statistics fail to capture the whole picture, one in which many women are still struggling to balance work and family life.

Job quality over quantity

Early in the pandemic, much was written about the disproportionate toll of COVID-19 on the finances and career prospects of Canadian women.

Female-dominated industries like accommodation and food services were the hardest-hit by restrictions and lockdowns, and many women also suffered from a lack of child care as daycares and schools shut down in those early months.

Even one year on, in March 2021, employment among women remained about 5.3 per cent below where it sat in February 2020, compared to a drop of about 3.7 per cent for men, according to a report from the Labour Market Information Council.

WATCH | How the pandemic has made employers more flexible for working parents:

Over the past year, many women have either left their jobs or reduced their hours so they could take care of children during the pandemic. It has pushed some employers to look into how to make work more flexible for parents. 2:31

But as the economy gradually reopened over the summer and fall, women's prospects improved. Canada as a whole caught up with its pre-pandemic job numbers in September of this year, and according to Statistics Canada, the only age group of women that has yet to recover to its pre-pandemic employment level is the 55-plus category.

"Now if you look at younger women, their employment rate is higher than it was before the pandemic. A little more than one percentage point higher," said University of Calgary economist Trevor Tombe.

"It's the same story for the 25-54 age group — their employment rate is one percentage point higher."

• Edmonton nursing professor among experts advising federal government on 'she-cession'

But Armine Yalnizyan, a Toronto-based economist and the Atkinson Foundation's Fellow on the Future of Workers, cautions against declaring the "she-cession" over. She pointed out that statistics offer an aggregate look at a population, and many individual women are still struggling with the impacts of the pandemic on their careers and finances.

In addition, Yalnizyan said, it's crucial to remember that Statistics Canada employment data only looks at the "quantity" of jobs, not "quality" — a key part of the story when it comes to COVID-19 and its affect on gender and the workforce.

According to Armine Yalnizyan, a Toronto-based economist and the Atkinson Foundation's Fellow on the Future of Workers, the question of the quality of work is 'really, really important to the question of what's been happening to women.' (Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives)

"The quality of work question is really, really important to the question of what's been happening to women," she said.

"For the 'I'm not able to get a promotion, I've had to change jobs or I have stress about possibly losing my job, I'm barely hanging on because my kids are home half the time,' the binary of 'are you employed or aren't you employed' isn't a very good metric."

Impact on working mothers

Before the pandemic hit, Stephanie Bakker-Houpf of High River, Alta., was excited to finally have time to focus on getting her creative consultancy and content management business off the ground after years of putting her own career dreams on the back-burner to raise her two now-teenage daughters.

But not only did her bread-and-butter contracts with musician and entertainer clients dry up in the absence of live performances last year, the divorced Bakker-Houpf found herself sacrificing precious work time as she helped her daughters with home-schooling and supported them through all of the disruptions and anxieties that go along with being a kid in a pandemic.

• VIDEO
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"Kids today are constantly dealing with uncertainty and their lives being interrupted. And yet, we as moms are still supposed to be able to function the same way and show up at our jobs the same way," Bakker-Houpf said.

Jennifer Hargreaves, founder and CEO of diversity recruitment organization Tellent — which aims to help women in career transition find new opportunities — said while it's true that as many women may be working now as before the pandemic, the numbers don't tell the whole story.

Jennifer Hargreaves, the CEO of diversity recruitment firm Tellent, says it's frightening to hear some employers say things are back to normal when more women are reaching out for mental health support 'because they've just got to a tipping point with burnout.' (Andy Heics photo )

In fact, Hargreaves said she worries Canadian working women may be heading into another crisis in 2022, as employers begin to urge employees to come back to the office on at least a part-time basis even as schools and daycares continue to struggle with COVID cases and children under five remain unvaccinated.

"What's frightening is some employers seem eager to say, 'we're going back to normal this year,' " Hargreaves said.

"Because what I actually see on the ground is more and more women reaching out and getting mental health support, because they've just got to a tipping point with burnout. And women are taking stress leave."

WATCH | Child care among key policies needed for she-covery, economist says:

The federal government is planning a national child-care program as one way to help get women — who bore the brunt of pandemic job losses — back to work. It’s a key support that one economist says is key to a ‘she-covery.’ 2:02

If women have one thing working in their favour, Hargreaves said, it's the fact that employers across a wide range of industries are struggling with systemic labour shortages right now.

She said she hopes that will spur employers to recognize that the way to retain talent is to continue to prioritize flexibility.

"I hope employers can take the lessons learned during COVID-19 and start implementing them and doing that culture shift," Hargreaves said.

"I think they're absolutely going to need to do that in order to stay agile in this new economy."

 

RELATED STORIES

• Trudeau vows to tackle 'she-cession' after new report says pandemic has been worse for working women
• Edmonton nursing professor among experts advising federal government on 'she-cession'
• Facing a 'she-cession,' federal child care cash key for working women & Canada's economy, says expert
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   Women fall behind in pandemic recovery due to childcare needs, job availability
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Regulator orders Shell to stop output at Prelude FLNG until safe

The Australian offshore regulator NOPSEMA has ordered Shell (LSE:RDSA) to stop production at its Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) unit until the energy major can demonstrate the giant floater’s ability to recover power and services safely.


By Damon Evans
28/12/2021,

Pictured is Shell's Prelude, the world's largest floating LNG project

The Australian offshore regulator NOPSEMA has ordered Shell (LSE:RDSA) to stop production at its Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) unit until the energy major can demonstrate the giant floater’s ability to recover power and services safely.

In early December, Shell temporarily suspended liquefied natural gas (LNG) production at Prelude FLNG due to a fire onboard the facility following a power outage.

Repeated attempts to establish stable electricity supply at the FLNG unit was jeopardising the health and safety of staff onboard. “The failure to restore reliable power was seen to represent an ongoing impact and risk to the health and safety of the personnel on the facility,” said NOPSEMA.

LNG production at Prelude offshore Western Australia could remain shut for months.

The 488 metre long Prelude, the world’s biggest FLNG unit, has been beset with problems since it shipped its first cargo of LNG in June 2019. Prelude was shut down in February 2020 for nearly a year after a reported electrical problem. The floater had previously suffered two incidents that saw the unintended release of gas, which NOPSEMA described as “dangerous”. Shell restarted production in January 2021 and it steadily produced LNG over 2021.

Shell operates Prelude FLNG with a 67.5% interest. Its partners include INPEX (17.5%), CPC (5%), and KOGAS (10%)

The FLNG facility can produce at least 5.3 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of liquids: 3.6 mtpa of LNG, 1.3 mtpa of condensate and 0.4 mtpa of liquefied petroleum gas.

Shell waiting on approval for CCS to exit Abadi LNG

Shell’s (LSE:RDSA) attempt to divest its stake in the Abadi liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, proposed in the Masela Block offshore Indonesia, is likely to be further delayed as operator Inpex (TYO:1605) seeks approval for a revised plan of development (POD).

By Damon Evans
28/12/2021, 

Chachoengsao, Thailand - Jan 28, 2018: Shell gas station logo with blue sky background during sunset. Shell is seeking to divest its share of Masela in Indonesia.

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Shell’s (LSE:RDSA) attempt to divest its stake in the Abadi liquefied natural gas (LNG) project, proposed in the Masela Block offshore Indonesia, is likely to be further delayed as operator Inpex (TYO:1605) seeks approval for a revised plan of development (POD).

The revised plan of development is required as Inpex want to make revisions to the proposed LNG project, including adding carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) technology amid increasing global pressure to cut emissions, said deputy chairman of upstream regulator SKK Migas, Fatar Yani Abdurrahman.

“Shell can only divest (its participating interest in Masela) if the POD has been revised by including CCUS. We’re still studying that. Otherwise, it will be difficult (for Shell) to sell (the shares), because (the gas) will not be considered as green product,” he told dunia-energi.com recently.

However, it remains to be seen if adding carbon capture and storage (CCS) or CCUS to the proposed project will help Shell’s divestment process.

Shell has so far failed to generate any significant interest in the sales process for its share of the giant Abadi LNG project 18 months after the Indonesian government announced the Anglo-Dutch supermajor’s intention to divest.

Shell’s 35% stake in the Masela Block offshore Indonesia is valued at $800 million to $1 billion, according to analysts. But, despite the block’s proximity to Asian demand markets, it is proving tough to find buyers for one of the world’s largest undeveloped gas resources. Japan’s Inpex operates the project with the remaining 65% share.

Development of Abadi’s proposed 9.5 million tonne per year (mtpy) onshore liquefaction scheme will be technically, as well as commercially challenging, and is expected to cost around $18 billion to $20 billion. The project includes a large FPSO unit capable of handling 51 million cm per day of gas and up to 36,000 barrels per day of condensate, as well as a deep-water trunk pipeline from the Abadi field to proposed liquefaction facilities on Yamdena in the remote Tanimbar Islands.

The Abadi field is carbon dioxide (CO2) heavy. Adding CCS or CCUS will likely make the project even less commercially appealing. But the growing push towards decarbonisation, especially among Japanese companies, makes development of Abadi almost impossible without CCS.

Inpex and Shell’s Abadi faces more headwinds as US LNG muscles in

Inpex said in August that it does not plan to take a final investment decision until around 2024-2025, two years later than previous guidance of 2022-2023. This is the latest in a series of delays for Abadi. Inpex blamed the delay on the COVID pandemic, which has disrupted site survey work ahead of front-end engineering and design (FEED). Inpex also said the project may need to be redesigned to incorporate carbon capture and storage (CCS) or carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS).