Largest Australian Gas Project 'Unacceptable'

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--Australia's largest untapped gas project has been dealt a serious blow by revelations that Western Australia's environment regulator deemed the project "unacceptable" as proposed.

The state's Environment Protection Authority (EPA) said that the US$20 billion Browse basin project, located about 300 kilometers off the Kimberley coast, could harm marine life and the Scott Reef, a coral reef ecosystem located on top of the basin. Following a freedom of information request by WAToday newspaper to the EPA, it emerged that the agency informed the developer in February that its massive project was too harmful as it stood. The EPA has since claimed that it will postpone a final decision on Woodside Energy Group's (NYSE:WDS) (Perth, Australia) project until next year. The revelations have caused a major public backlash and forced the region's Premier, Roger Cook--a supporter of the project--to respond: "The EPA are there to assess these projects and make sure that we can mitigate against any negative impacts on the environment. And that's why they are obviously in deep discussion with Woodside in relation to that project."

The report found that the existing plan, which involves drilling operations as close as 3 kilometers (km) to the reef, could result in condensate spill as well as be a danger to the reef and the 1,500 species of marine life living off it, including migrating whales and other endangered species. Woodside wants to develop the Brecknock, Calliance and Torosa conventional natural gas fields located in the basin. The proposed development concept includes two floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facilities and a 900-km pipeline to existing infrastructure at the North West Shelf Project's Karratha Gas Plant (KGP). The goal is to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to markets in Asia while providing additional domestic gas security for Western Australia. The project has remained in development hell for a number of decades, but Woodside hopes to get production up and running by 2030. Woodside declined to comment on whether it had received the EPA preliminary report, and the EPA responded to Reuters: "It is not appropriate to comment on any outcome until the assessment and appeals process are complete."

Industrial Info is tracking 18 projects related to the development. Subscribers to Industrial Info's Global Market Intelligence (GMI) Production Project Database can click here for related project reports. Last year, BP (NYSE:BP) (London, England) became the largest shareholder in the project with 44% after it agreed to buy rival giant Shell plc's (NYSE:SHEL) (London, England) 27% stake.

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