Empire Energy urges governments to finalise rules around fracking gasThe NT News can reveal the Territory government will release its fracking implementation report on Wednesday. One of the two main companies with exploration permits at the Beetaloo Sub-basin is hopeful the NT government will soon finalise the rules around fracking at the potentially lucrative gas prospect.
Environment Minister Lauren Moss released a regional study in April into potential environmental impacts of the Beetaloo Sub-basin development that could clear the way for the project to begin.The NT News can reveal the the Territory government will on Wednesday release its fracking implementation report.
Empire Energy chief executive Alex Underwood welcomed comments by Ms Moss that with the SREBA report finalised and inquiries from the Pepper fracking inquiry ticked-off, the government can now proceed towards finalising regulatory approvals.
“It was good to see a quote from Minister Moss that we should see resolution on signing off on the Pepper Inquiry recommendations in coming weeks,” Mr Underwood said.“We look forward to resolution and in the event that it’s an affirmative outcome, that’s really a key point for us to move into rounding off all these processes in making the investments go get into production.”
Beetaloo regulation was anticipated to have been completed by 2022 but Empire has a busy 2023 agenda and is still hopeful of first production by late next year or early 2025.The company plans a major stakeholder engagement program through the year including on-country meetings with TOs to negotiate transferring the existing exploration agreements to production contracts.
The CSIRO recently outlined an offsets pathway towards zero emissions at the Beetaloo and based around the low CO2 emissions at the resource, Empire is confident they will not seriously impact its project.“We’ve been running numbers internally and had them independently tested and based on current preliminary modelling, it’s looking like the cost of offsetting scope one emissions . we’re talking a bout a relatively low single digit percentage of revenue,” Mr Underwood said.“Despite assertions made by certain groups not supportive of our industry, the reality is it’s an entirely manageable financial impact on our project.“The reality is we’re in an increasingly carbon constrained world and I think we need to be doing what we can to demonstrate to people that we’re looking to minimise our environmental impact.”
The company will push ahead with regulatory approvals around its pilot production program and will negotiate appropriate arrangements with Power and Water to access the McArthur River Mine pipeline, as well as negotiating gas sales agreement, focused mainly in the NT.“The existing pipeline infrastructure is quite limited,” Mr Underwood said.“The MRM pipeline is relatively small and so essentially the way we see that initial flow of gas from the Beetaloo is it is going to be first-of-all to take pressure off gas supply constraints here in Darwin.
In the face of continued opposition to fracking, Mr Underwood is encouraged by the public position of the federal Labor government.“Certainly the Prime Minister, the Federal Resources Minister (Madeleine King) and Energy Minister (Chris Bowen) have all made quite strong statements around the importance of gas going forward and I note the Greens sought a ban on new gas fields, which the Federal government rejected in its safeguard mechanism legislation,” he said.“There has been a lot of new regulatory implementation on a rolling basis and really what we need for investor confidence is for all of those new measures to be implemented and settled so that we can move forward.”
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