By Peter Milne
US-run firm Black Mountain Energy plans to drill up to 20 gas wells in the Kimberley using the controversial technique of hydraulic fracturing, known as fracking, according to plans released by Western Australia’s environmental watchdog on Monday.
The wells will probe up to 5 kilometres below ground to determine whether gas could be economically produced by fracturing the rock with high-pressure water.
For decades companies have tried to develop gas reserves from the Canning Basin in the Kimberley.Credit: Damien Kelly
Environs Kimberley director Martin Pritchard said the Kimberley needed protection from industrialisation.
“The Cook government has not explained why the Kimberley, a global icon, can be sacrificed to fracking,” he said.
A recent submission for federal environmental approval for Black Mountain’s plans about 120 kilometres south-east of Derby attracted almost 3000 public comments.
Now, the public has eight weeks to comment on the proposal to the WA Environmental Protection Authority.
Authority deputy chair Lee McIntosh said the plan had a high level of public interest and the potential to affect the environment in numerous ways.
Fracking in WA is allowed in parts of Kimberley and Mid West after the WA Labor government weakened a statewide moratorium in 2018, following an inquiry led by then-EPA chair Tom Hatton.
No fracking can occur until all Hatton’s recommendations are implemented. Almost six years on, that work continues, said a spokesman for the Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety, but declined to say when it would be finished.
Black Mountain Energy, owner of titleholder Bennett Resources, was delisted from the ASX in March after shareholders voted to go private, citing difficulty finding new investors. Chair and chief executive Rhett Bennet, and five of his eight-strong management team, are based in the United States.
Gas from the Canning Basin was exempted from a WA government ban on exporting onshore gas in 2021. If Black Mountain’s drilling is successful and it moves to commercial production, the most likely avenue to international markets is Woodside’s North West Shelf gas plant near Karratha, almost 1000 kilometres away.
One of Black Mountain’s proposed wells is 2 kilometres from Mt Hardman Creek in the Kimberley.
To justify the expense of such a pipeline Black Mountain would likely have to drill many hundreds of wells, if not thousands.
Black Mountain did not respond to a request for comment.
It has $6.4 million on hand, according to a recent update to shareholders.
WA campaigner for environmental organisation Lock the Gate, Claire McKinnon, said the Cook Labor government should not allow Black Mountain to “lay waste to the Kimberley with polluting fracked gas fields” just to allow the gas and the profits to go overseas.
The Canning Basin was once explored by major companies, including Mitsubishi, Origin Energy, Squadron Energy, and US firms Hess and ConocoPhillips, which have all now left the region to much smaller companies.
Bennett bought Mitsubishi’s permits in 2019 and he listed Black Mountain on the ASX in 2022. So far, the company has spent more than $40 million on the Kimberley permits, its only assets.
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