Australian energy industry unsettled by delay in Pluto LNG expansion as environmentalists play a different card
The Australian energy industry has been unsettled by environmental activists using an Aboriginal woman and additionally citing concern for whales and managing to persuade a Federal Court to delay Woodside Energy’s US$12 billion Scarborough gas project for LNG expansion, citing seismic testing approval deficiencies.
The Scarborough gas project is one of the few moving forward in Australia and has been specially targeted by environmental activists who have now succeeded in delaying Woodside’s plans as the previously approved seismic testing programme has now been called into question.
The Australian Federal Court by a decision handed down on September 28 has invalidated approvals given to Woodside by the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA).
Perth-based Woodside has yet to issue a formal response to the court decision.
Previous ruling
The Supreme Court of Western Australia had previously, in March 2022, dismissed two proceedings brought against the Pluto LNG and Karratha Gas Plant environmental approvals given in 2019.
In the latest hearing, Justice Craig Coleman found that NOPSEMA, did not have the statutory power to accept Woodside’s environment plan because he wasn’t reasonably satisfied that all relevant stakeholders had been consulted, including some local Aboriginals.
The Pluto LNG onshore processing facility is located on the Burrup Peninsula near Karratha in the northwest of Western Australia and the first cargo from the current single-Train facility was delivered in 2012.
The second Train planned using Scarborough field gas will have 5 million tonnes per annum of output and take total nameplate capacity to around 9.2 MTPA.
The Scarborough field is located about 375 kilometres (233 miles) off the coast of Western Australia and is estimated to contain over 11 trillion cubic feet of dry gas.
Aboriginal voice
In the Court decision to delay, the environmentalists had called on an Aboriginal woman named as Raelene Cooper to seek a court injunction to reverse the seismic testing approval, citing opposition from the “traditional custodians” of the Burrup Peninsula who seemingly had never been properly consulted.
After the ruling a statement was released on behalf of Mrs Cooper in which she said she was “elated” by the decision and described the legal win as more than a personal victory.
“I want my mob back home to be empowered by this day today. This is bigger than me,” she said. “It's about my people and our history. We've been forgotten and treated so badly,” the woman added.
“Woodside just came and told us what was happening,” she said. “They never bothered to sit down and listen to Murujuga traditional custodians about the full impacts of their Burrup hub operations on our culture and our sacred song lines,” she stated.
