With “billions of dollars” in royalties promised, a US gas corporation with the largest holding in the Beetaloo Basin has hailed the approval of a full-scale fracking industry.
The Northern Territory government has been deliberating on its final decision regarding fracking in the Beetaloo Basin for weeks while Tamboran Resources has placed a sizable drill rig under quarantine at Darwin Port.
The company’s dreams came true on Wednesday.
Joel Riddle, the CEO, told reporters on Friday, “We’re really happy [with] the way the timing worked out.
“That wasn’t in the plan.”
According to Mr. Riddle, Tamboran has pledged to pay the territorial coffers 10% of royalties from its Beetaloo gas production profits.
According to him, the final sum would depend on gas prices and demand.
Not everyone was having fun in a little town near the basin.
“I’m devastated,” said resident Des Barritt. “I’m furious—really, really angry.”
A man rests against a table while wearing a tattered hat and a blue button-up shirt with torn sleeves.
About 100 kilometers from the Beetaloo sub-basin in Mataranka, Mr. Barritt is the proprietor of the Little Roper stock camp.
Tourists visiting natural hot springs, like Bitter Springs, which draw groundwater from a sizable linked aquifer, are essential to his business.
“The water is irreplaceable,” he declared.
According to one scenario presented in the Pepper Inquiry’s final report, the Beetaloo Basin might require between 2,500 and 5,000 megaliters of water annually for drilling and fracking wells.
The Northern Territory administration, according to Mr. Barritt, is not effectively overseeing the use of water for fracking.
“They’re not transparent,” he declared. “Any risk to our water needs to be examined much more thoroughly than the Northern Territory government is doing at the moment,” the author said.
a green and palm-fringed swimming hole in the middle of the ocean.
Samuel Sandy, a Djingili elder and bearer of a native title, also expressed worry on the effect of a significant gas industry on nearby groundwater.
According to Mr. Sandy, the vice head of the Nurrdalinji Aboriginal Corporation, “water is very vital in the Northern Territory.”
According to Mr. Riddle, Tamboran recently visited with around 50 traditional owners in the nearby community of Elliott.
He claimed that everyone was “unanimously positive” about continuing with the development.
If anything, he claimed, they were annoyed by how long it took.
This week, allegations that the government had fully adopted all 135 Pepper Inquiry recommendations were refuted by the Northern Territory government’s independent fracking regulator.
Before enabling fracking to proceed, the government agreed to this important requirement.
Erin O’Donnell, a senior lecturer in water law at the University of Melbourne, added that there were still more recommendations that needed to be made.
These included commitments to a federal water trigger that would activate more oversight of the effects of fracking on the environment and a water allocation plan that would outline how much water could be safely used for industry.
According to Dr. O’Donnell, “water allocation plans do really important things” to build up the sustainable management of water resources in the Northern Territory.
Simply put, we don’t have one for the Beetaloo Basin.
A group of Australian water experts criticized the Northern Territory government’s submission of a draft water allocation plan for the Georgina-Wiso basin last year.
In the upcoming weeks, it is anticipated to present a finished water allocation plan for the Beetaloo Basin.
