Keith Pitt reveals $19.4m grants to open up NT fracking

Millions in taxpayers dollars have been announced for the gas industry to open up exploration in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Sub-Basin, two months after the courts invalidated a similar grant.

UPDATE 10AM WED: MILLIONS in taxpayers dollars have been announced for the gas industry to open up exploration in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Sub-Basin.

At an exclusive industry dinner, Resources Minister Keith Pitt announced the federal government has entered into three grant agreements worth a combined $19.4m under the Beetaloo Cooperative Drilling Program.

Mr Pitt said the grants would support the exploration company, Imperial Oil and Gas, to continue drilling three petroleum exploration wells.

The funding announcement comes two months after the Federal Court ruled $21m in grants between Mr Pitt and Imperial Oil and Gas’s parent company, Empire Energy, were invalid.

The court challenge by the Environment Centre NT led to Justice John Griffiths finding the grants were “legally unreasonable”.

Mr Pitt was found to have entered into contracts over the grants while they were still the subject of court proceedings.

ECNT Co-director Kirsty Howey said Territorians would be “outraged” to see the grants effectively reissued to the gas company.

“To turn around and re-award these grants goes against public expectations about how taxpayer money should be spent,” Ms Howey said.

But Mr Pitt said the new $19.4m grants to the Empire’s subsidiary was part of the government’s “gas-led recovery”.

“We are now getting on with the job of opening up the Beetaloo as part of the Strategic Basins Plan and these grants will assist in that important process,” he said.

“Activists trying to stop or delay crucial gas projects threaten future energy security both here in Australia and in countries around the world that rely on our LNG exports.”

Empire Energy managing director Alex Underwood said over their decade-long involvement in the Beetaloo region they had “exceeded regulatory requirements” when working with Traditional Owners, operational safety and maintaining minimal environmental impact.

“The economic, energy and social benefits will be substantial, but development requires a collaborative partnership between gas companies, governments who own the resources on behalf of their citizens and regulate all activity, traditional owners, native title holders, land users and local communities,” Mr Underwood said.

“Any assistance we will receive from government will bring forward our own substantial investment and is commensurate with the benefits the activity will deliver to taxpayers, the broader community, and traditional owners who will gain employment and exploration payments akin to royalties.”

Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis LNG/gas analyst Bruce Robertson said the Imperial grant took up nearly 39 per cent of the $50m subsidy pool for Beetaloo gas exploration, leaving all other companies to share in “the remnants”.

“As a high-risk investment, gas exploration is usually left to the private sector,” Mr Robertson said.

“Governments shouldn’t be involved in high risk, uncertain return, activities.”

Mr Robertson said commercial gas production from the Beetaloo Basin “wouldn’t start until the second half of the decade subject to the highly speculative drilling success”.

Mr Pitt made his announcement to the Energy Club NT via video link into the ticketed event, after he was forced to amend his in-person appearance because of a positive Covid test.

The dinner, which charged $960 a table, was sponsored by peak gas and oil bodies, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association and Energy Information Australia.

The $19.4m announcement came as anti-fracking protesters gathered outside the Double Tree Hilton.

Protect Country Alliance called the grants an “insult to the Northern Territory’s communities, businesses, and environment”.

Spokesman Graeme Sawyer said Mr Pitt’s grants were nothing more than corporate welfare.

“The fracking industry is operating on subsidies and has become like a parasite, sucking more from our governments and communities than it returns,” Mr Sawyer said.

Mr Sawyer was critical of the industry’s future, given the shift to renewable resources, and the exportation of gas away from the domestic market.

“Ninety-nine point nine per cent of Territorians won’t benefit from this industry – instead we will suffer as fracking pollutes our rivers and groundwater, and drives dangerous climate change that is already leading to never before seen heat records in the Top End,” he said.

Climate action group 350 Australia director Kelly Albion said it was an “atrocious misuse of public money” and called the grant “mind-boggling”.

Ms Albion said there was ample evidence and international agreements over the importance of addressing climate change.

She alleged that Empire Energy had a history of lobbying the Liberal Party, with Senate inquiries revealing the gas company had given donations to the party and paid for chartered flights to ministers.

“We are extremely concerned by Empire Energy’s track record, its extensive lobbying and donations to the Liberal Party, and the disastrous impact this project will have for our climate,” she said.

“Given the NT Government’s failure to implement the recommendations of the Pepper Inquiry into fracking, including unclear wastewater rules, proceeding with these grants is reckless.”

The Environment Centre NT said they recently lodged a submission to the NT Government over their concerns for Imperial Oil and Gas’s environmental management plans for six exploration wells west of Larrimah.

INITIAL 6AM TUES: A PROTEST targeting the Federal Resources Minister’s speech at a Darwin gas industry event is expected to go ahead, despite the speaker being stuck outside the Territory.

Keith Pitt was scheduled to visit the Energy Club NT industry dinner on Tuesday, but told the NT news he had tested positive to Covid late last week.

Mr Pitt said he would attend a ticketed event, hosted by peak bodies representing the oil and gas industry, via a virtual address to speak about the future of the NT oil and gas sector.

The Environment Centre NT said anti-fracking demonstrators would still hold a protest outside the Double Tree Hilton at 6pm in reaction to Mr Pitt’s address. ECNT energy campaigner Jason Fowler said Mr Pitt’s gas expansion plans were not welcome in the Territory.

“Pitt is only interested in lining the pockets of these gas executives with more cash, he’s not working for the interests of the people or environment of the Territory,” Mr Fowler said.

Federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Gary Ramage

Protect Country Alliance spokesman Dan Robins said the only people who would benefit from fracking were those who could afford to attend the $960 per table exclusive industry dining event. “We absolutely cannot afford the disadvantage and destruction fracking will bring to the Territory,” Mr Robins said.

“(We’ll) tell these executives and their political backers that frankers are not welcome in the NT.”

Mr Pitt accused the protesters of undermining the industry. “Misguided action by activists threatens future energy security both here in Australia and to countries around the world that rely on our LNG exports,” he said.

In December, the ECNT successfully overturned a $21 million grant to Empire Energy issued by Mr Pitt to speed up fracking in the Beetaloo Basin after the Supreme Court found it was “unreasonable” to approve the money while the project was being challenged in court.