Santos steps-up its focus on the Territory’s Beetaloo gas precinct

A leading global gas player is eyeing one of the Northern Territory’s key assets. Read what’s changed.

Gas giant Santos is honing in on its Territory onshore activities with an increased focus on the McArthur Basin and the Beetaloo as the energy producer sets its sights on longer-term backfill projects that could require Territory gas.

The Barossa-field developer is looking to move beyond the $6bn Darwin LNG renewal project with an enhanced focus on the Territory and the gas-rich McArthur province that extends 180,000sq km across the north-eastern Northern Territory.

Santos’ board was in Darwin this week, where chief executive Kevin Gallagher expressed his optimism about the company’s NT plans.

“It is the strong support of governments like the Territory’s that give us confidence to continue to invest here,” he said.

Santos chief executive Kevin Gallagher. Picture: NCA NewsWire / RoyVphotography

“I hope that the industry together with the NT government can unlock the wealth of the Territory’s gas resources over the next four years - both offshore with Barossa but also onshore in the Beetaloo.”

Delayed by greens legal-activism that led to $9m costs being awarded to Santos by the federal court last week, the Barossa offshore project is now 84 per cent complete and on track for first gas next year while the Darwin LNG life extension project is 67 per cent complete.

This has given Santos the time and space to re-focus on its McArthur and Beetaloo basin assets, which were put on ice as the company battled egregious cultural heritage claims that were thrown out by the federal court earlier this year.

At an investor briefing late last month, Santos executive vice president Brett Darley described its Barossa asset as “a fantastic resource” and flagged an uptick in activity to become the third main Beetaloo player behind Tamboran and Empire Energy.

He said the company would be able to leverage off existing extraction technologies honed at the Marcellus Shale, one of the world’s largest natural gas deposits in the United States.

SANTOS Executive vice president Brett Darley. Picture: Supplied

“Beetaloo is the potential project we are really excited about,” he said.

“We believe we have a sweet spot in the MacArthur Basin, with the Beetaloo being a subset of that.

“We are talking tens of trillion cubic feet of gas that could help fill Darwin LNG or Gladstone LNG.

“It’s scalable, it’s a drill to fill operation that then we can plan our capital on. So again, fits very well into our operating model. (Another) thing we also like about it is it’s analogous to shales that are currently being developed with current technology in the Marcellus.

“So this isn’t inventing the technology, this is leveraging technology that already exists large scale in the US.

“We’re looking to actually do some further appraisal in 2026 and we’re really excited about just how supportive the new Northern Territory government is to actually exploiting these opportunities. This is a fantastic resource for us.”

A Macquarie bank investor flashnote published late last month identified future partnerships between Santos and pipeline builder APA to connect the Beetaloo with the company’s Gladstone LNG resource.

“Santos (as LNG operator) and APA Group ... are two key stakeholders that could be critical in fast tracking Beetaloo basin development on a larger scale beyond the pilot phase,” it said.