The potential of gas fracking in a pristine wilderness area has opened a fresh fault line between industry and conservation groups.
Premier Roger Cook said Western Australia could be forced to permit fracking in the Kimberley region if Woodside Energy’s $30 billion offshore Browse project was not developed and the state was left short of gas.
Mr Cook told the Australian Financial Review that WA had a large deficit in its future energy needs, and renewable sources would not be able to replace the gas needed to meet demands from households and heavy industry.
The mining sector welcomed Mr Cook’s remarks, with the Chamber of Minerals and Energy saying gas and the proposed Browse development were critical to WA’s energy security.
“The premier is right: gas will be essential to keeping WA’s energy system reliable and affordable for decades to come,” chief executive Aaron Morey said.
“Browse is a no-brainer.”
However, the premier’s comments triggered an avalanche of criticism from environmental groups.
The Conservation Council said WA was not facing a gas supply problem, but it did have a gas export problem.
Playing off Woodside’s Browse project against fracking in the Kimberley as an either-or scenario was disingenuous and misleading, the council said.
“The government has a choice: make the gas industry deliver the gas they already owe us and is readily available, or let them destroy precious places like Scott Reef and the Kimberley,” executive director Matt Roberts said.
“Gas companies are meant to reserve 15 per cent of their gas for the domestic market, but deliver little more than half of that.”
Environs Kimberley said the WA government should force the oil and gas industry to increase the supply of domestic gas.
“These comments from the premier are outrageous,” executive director Martin Pritchard said.
“Saying that an iconic place like the Kimberley has to be sacrificed to fracking or Scott reef drilled by the oil and gas industry is shocking.”
Greens MP Sophie McNeill also scolded the premier.
“It’s a complete lie that either one of these beautiful places needs to be destroyed just because the gas industry wants to make massive profits,” she said.
Conservation groups are challenging the federal environment minister’s North West Shelf Project extension approval in the Federal Court.
Environmental groups have also lodged a judicial review challenge in the Supreme Court.