Orion: You are spot on there. The expansion of the moratorium to...

Orion:
You are spot on there.
The expansion of the moratorium to include all onshore drilling was announced after LKO proposed a $50 million JV with Beach Petroleum to progress the Wombat field to production. Beach walked away after the ban was widened to include all LKO activities (coincidence?...I think not).
Further LKO had been seeking the go ahead to drill in the Otway permit but had not got the go ahead.
Origin applied and were given an exemption and drilled four wells supposedly to reservoirs that were located offshore.....the 4 wells were drilled horizontally for thousands of metres through the very same geology that LKO wanted to drill their 2 conventional vertical wells and were denied. The location of the proposed LKO drill site is less than 10 kilometres from the existing Origin site and there is a gas processing facility in the area as well
Lakes raised the question of the double standards in the media but the press gave it next to no attention
With the total value of gas available in the LKO permit areas it is no surprise that someone does not want LKO to access the gas and is prepared to wait until they go out of business.
Don't forget that Rob Annells proposed to sell the gas in to the Victorian domestic market at a substantial discount but this was dismissed at the Inquiry by some of the panel members with the usual "I don't believe you". The only sensible outcome of that Inquiry was the minority report by the ALP member Adem Somyurek, but he is not one of Daniel Andrew's yes men.