Lock the Gate Alliance calls on the re-elected Federal Labor Government to recognise the harm gas is inflicting on communities, water and climate and reject consortium APLNG’s massive “Gas Security Supply Project” planned for inland Queensland.
The joint venture, composed of Origin Energy, Conocophillips, and Sinopec, recently lodged a new federal draft public environment application for its mostly export-focused “Gas Security Supply Project”, which would export LNG through the existing terminal at Gladstone and operate until 2061.
The companies are seeking federal government approval to drill 4435 coal seam gas wells across tens of thousands of square kilometres of inland Queensland, stretching from near Miles on the Western Downs to Rolleston in the north, with large development areas planned east of the Carnarvon Highway.
Gasfield at a glance:
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4435 new coal seam gas wells
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3623 km of new gas and water pipelines
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Eight large gas processing facilities
The application shows the project would likely impact numerous threatened species, including the koala, greater glider, and black throated finch.
Lock the Gate Alliance National Coordinator Ellen Roberts said, “Queensland’s many existing coal seam gas projects are already fracturing rural communities, harming farmland and the environment, contaminating water, and driving dangerous climate pollution.
“Origin claims to be an ethical, climate-minded company. There is nothing ethical or climate-conscious about a new unconventional gas project that threatens a long list of endangered species, farmland, and the water our Queensland communities and environment depend on.
“Origin’s largest shareholder, Australian Super recently took fellow gas giant Woodside to task over its climate failings and Origin should expect to face the same scrutiny, should it proceed with this totally wreckless climate-threatening gas project.
“Australia’s new Environment Minister, Murray Watt, is a Queenslander, so he will know just how much of the sunshine state has been damaged by coal seam gas developments already. We urge him to put a halt to the expansion of the coal seam gas industry in Queensland.
“More than 16,000 coal seam gas wells have already been drilled across inland Queensland including through some of the state’s best farming country. Queensland can’t afford any more gas projects, certainly not one as large as what APLNG has proposed.”
ENDS