well this wont help ffs

Explorer behind controversial NSW gas plan pursued for abandoned wells in WA

ByPeter Milne

March 15, 2024 — 5.00am

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WHY IT MATTERS

• The Federal & NSW governments will soon decide on gas drilling off the NSW coast
• Communities are concerned about their beaches and ocean
• The main company wanting to drill has questions over its financial viability
• It has also not followed an order from the WA government to clean up old wells

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A company pushing to drill for gas off the northern NSW coast is being pursued by the West Australian government for not making old gas wells safe, and has question marks over its financial viability.

A well of Advent Energy subsidiary Onshore Energy in WA’s remote Kimberley region had an increasing risk it could leak due to rising gas pressure or heat from a bushfire, according to an internal state government memo seen by this masthead.

“A well leak during a bushfire season poses a very high and uncontrollable bushfire risk,” the April 2023 memo at WA’s Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety said.

Any emergency at the remote Vienta-1 well, 44 kilometres north of Kununurra, would be “challenging and expensive” to respond to and the department was concerned a gas leak or fire could significantly damage surrounding stations, Indigenous communities and a conservation park.

A troubled company

Another Advent company, Asset Energy, owns 85 per cent of the controversial petroleum exploration permit PEP11, a 4500-square-kilometre area off the NSW coast stretching from Manly to Newcastle. ASX-listed Bounty Oil and Gas owns the minor share of the permit.

There was “significant doubt about the group’s ability to continue as a going concern”, according to Moore Australia, the auditor of Advent’s accounts to June 2023.