Last Week on June 7 the Northern Territory Government approved Tamboran Resources’ plans to expand their fracking operations in the NT’s Beetaloo Basin.

This means that fracking will be proceeding in the NT without any environmental impact assessment, despite Tamboran’s history of pollution offences.

Tamboran plans to expand this project to 70 gas wells. The NT Government’s own fracking Inquiry estimated that opening the Beetaloo to fracking would lead to more than 6,000 fracking wells.

The project will:

• Use up to 606,000 litres of chemicals and 2,351 tonnes of sand per well.
• Use up to 1,117ML of water for fracking and drilling, including extracting 375 ML/year of water from the Gum Ridge Formation of the Cambrian Limestone Aquifer from up to 24 new groundwater bores. 
• Store up to 34 million litres of wastewater in huge open storage ponds on site during the wet season posing a contamination risk

Traditional owners from the Nurrdalinji Native Title Aboriginal Corporation have called on Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek to scrutinise Tamboran’s water impacts using the new ‘water trigger’ in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act.

Yanyuwa and Garawa woman and Director of Nurrdalinji Aboriginal Corporation, Joni Wilson, who lives with her young family between Borroloola and a tiny outstation at Lightning Ridge, in the heart of the Beetaloo Basin, said, “I am a jungayi for my country which will be fracked. I carry the responsibility to protect and care for it.

“We just lived through serious floods and a cyclone at Borroloola. Climate change is making the storms worse. The government should not say okay to Tamboran building more fracking wells on a floodplain.

“Tamboran has already been caught out for polluting water. This week the other big gas company Empire was found to have impacted our land. What happens when there are thousands of wells? Our sacred waterways, the plants, the animals we hunt, our children will be poisoned”.

The Federal government can use the newly expanded water trigger which now applies to fracking (shale gas) to better protect water resources and even potentially stop these dangerous projects. We campaigned in Wills with pressure on Peter Khalil for this enhanced water trigger in 2023.

But the new powers are no use unless Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek calls in the project to assess Tamboran use of water resources for fracking gas extraction and processing and the environmental impacts.

Action: Call now: Federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek – (02) 6277 7920
Then give feedback on the call to Frack Free NT

Wills Climate and Environment Advisory Group

In March members of Climate Action Merribek as part of the Wills Climate and Environment Advisory Group (WCEAG) met with Peter Khalil MP. and asked regarding the water trigger and whether Tanya Plibersek will be using it to prevent highly detrimental projects like the Beetaloo Basin, Peter said that he is waiting to hear back on his request for a meeting. We called for Peter to campaign in the government to:

• Use of the water trigger Action: please urge Tanya Plibersek to call in referrals under the Water Trigger extension from Tamboran Resources and Empire Energy, the NT Beetaloo Basin gas frackers
• Real strengthening of the EPBC Act without exemptions for gas exploration (such as implement a Climate Trigger in the EPBC Act

Despite urging the WCEAG have had difficulty seeking a follow up meeting with Peter Khalil

Lock the Gate

In a Lock the Gate Media Release Hannah Ekin, from the Central Australian Frack Free Alliance, said “Tamboran’s Shenandoah gasfield plans are an absolute disaster for the NT.”

“The NT Government should never have approved Tamboran’s EMP because it contained incomplete information concerning its impact on water, habitat, threatened species, and climate.

“We believe the company has massively underestimated the project’s greenhouse gas emissions and its direct impacts on the environment.”

Tamboran Resources Project details

Tamboran’s proposal details:

• Drill and hydraulically fracture 15 gas wells with up to 60 hydraulic fracking stages per well, involving vast quantities of up to 606,000 litres of chemicals and 2,351 tonnes of sand per well.
• These wells are likely to be very deep and very long horizontal wells, with the most recent Shenandoah South exploration well drilled reaching 4,300m depth and over 1,000m in length
• Use up to 1,117ML of water for fracking and drilling, including extracting 375 ML/year of water from the Gum Ridge Formation of the Cambrian Limestone Aquifer from up to 24 new groundwater bores. 
• Develop a centralised wastewater treatment plant at Shenandoah South
• Build drilling waste and flowback wastewater management on each site, including storage in open and closed tanks, and transfer of wastewater and solids between different sites. This would encompass construction of sumps for storage of drilling mud, chips and fluids and construction of 8.6km of gas and water gathering networks connecting exploration sites to allow for the transfer of wastewater (including raw water, flowback, completion and drilling wastewater) and gas between various well site
• Storing up to 34 million litres of wastewater in huge open storage ponds on site during the wet season, despite the Pepper Inquiry into Fracking recommending that fracking wastewater should be kept in enclosed tanks to limit contamination risks.
• Clear 145 hectares of land for well pads, seismic lines and gathering lines, habitat likely to support threatened and declining species including the Gouldian Finch and Spectacled Hare-wallaby.
  

In April 2024, Tamboran signed a 15-year supply deal with the Northern Territory government, which has been criticised by industry and experts as secretive and anti-competitive.

Darwin Middle Arm project $1.5 billion subsidy for gas expansion

The Federal Government is still committed to funding the Darwin Middlearm development to the tune of $1.5 billion which will allow LNG gas processing to be built for gas export, including with fracked gas from the Beetaloo Basin.

The NT Government estimated in the Pepper Inquiry Final Report (p 98) that over 6,000 wells could be drilled in the Beetaloo if the fracking industry progresses. If the Beetaloo Basin fracking proposal proceeds it will breach Australia’s climate commitments and worsen the impacts of floods, droughts, fires and extreme temperatures, as well as threaten groundwater and damage cultural heritage values. The International Energy Agency says no new fossil fuel projects, including gas, should be built anywhere in the world if humanity is to maintain a safe climate.

the 2018 NT Pepper Inquiry noted that the response of Aboriginal people from regional communities “almost universally expressed deep concern about, and strong opposition to, the development of any onshore shale gas industry on their country.”

Time for Australia to stop new gas

Australia needs to stop all new coal and gas projects. The Climate Council has produced a new report highlighting Powering Past Gas: An Energy Strategy That Works. This includes four major findings:

• 1. The world is embracing clean energy, not gas.
• 2. A surge in new projects means, globally, there will soon be too much gas.
• 3. Australia can reliably meet our energy needs without new gas.
• 4. We need new policy thinking, not new gas.

References;

Nurrdalinji Aboriginal Corporation, 7 June 2024, Traditional Owners condemn NT Govt approval of Tamboran’s fracking plans https://www.nurrdalinji.org.au/call_on_plibersek_to_apply_the_water_trigger

Lock the Gate, 7 June 2024, Plibersek must act as NT Gov approves Tamboran’s latest frack plan https://www.lockthegate.org.au/plibersek_must_act_as_nt_gov_approves_tamboran_s_latest_frack_plan

Thomas Morgan, ABC News, 26 April 2024, Tamboran and NT government’s secretive Beetaloo Basin gas deal criticised by industry, experts https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-26/concerns-over-nt-government-and-tamboran-beetaloo-gas-deal/103769966

Climate Council, 12 June 2024, Powering Past Gas: An Energy Strategy That Works. https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/powering-past-gas-an-energy-strategy-that-works/

Photo bt School Strike for Climate, 2020, CC BY 2.0 (Attribution) on Flickr