Activists to continue fight as energy company plans new push for Kimberley gas project

Activists targeting a plan to drill for gas in WA’s Kimberley region have vowed to push ahead with their campaign after the company said it would present a new plan to federal regulators.

Protesters against Black Mountain Energy's Valhalla gas project outside the WA Environmental Protection Authority.

Environmental activists targeting a controversial plan to drill for gas in Western Australia’s Kimberley region have vowed to push ahead with their campaign after the company said it would present a new plan to federal regulators.

Black Mountain Energy, an unlisted company owned by Texan oil billionaire Rhett Bennett, earlier this month quietly withdrew the approvals application it had lodged under the federal Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act process for its Valhalla gas project in the Canning Basin.

Black Mountain had applied to drill and hydraulically fracture up to six wells at the project, which has been found to have almost 12 trillion cubic feet of prospective gas resources.

Withdrawal from the process followed a concerted push by several environmental groups to derail the project – and sparked some celebration among those opponents – but Black Mountain has confirmed the federal approvals will now be resubmitted.

In an update to shareholders, Black Mountain said a new referral had been submitted to include all potential appraisal wells as well as new data from a recent fauna survey. The new application would appear to be in line with the submission lodged with WA’s Environmental Protection Authority, which covers a proposed 20-well drilling program.

“The company continues to believe Project Valhalla in the Canning Basin is a significantly large undeveloped unconventional onshore gas reservoir and remains focused on progressing the necessary approvals that will ultimately enable appraisal drilling activity,” the company said.

Multiple environmental groups are running campaigns targeting the project and pushing both federal and state governments to intervene.

The Lock the Gate Alliance WA earlier this year targeted the office of Labor MP Josh Wilson, who holds the seat of Fremantle, and last week Environs Kimberley, Seed Mob, Lock the Gate, the Conservation Council of WA and the ACF delivered thousands of submissions to the WA EPA objecting to the project.

Environs Kimberley spokesman Martin Pritchard said the campaign had been buoyed by the withdrawal of the EPBC application.

“We’re calling it a win in that they’ve had to withdraw their current proposal. Now they’re saying they’re going to come back but we’ll wait and see on that one,” he said.

Mr Pritchard said the campaigners saw the opportunity to use the project to put pressure on federal and state seats at the upcoming elections, particularly in the Labor-held state and federal seats of Fremantle.

Lock the Gate Alliance WA spokeswoman Simone van Hattem said Black Mountain’s work would present a contamination threat to the waterways of the Kimberley and the threatened species that live there.

“While we welcome news that Black Mountain has gone back to the drawing board for its federal assessment, we won’t be relaxing our campaign against this multinational fracking company until its Valhalla project has been withdrawn from the state assessment process as well,” she said.

Lock the Gate is pushing for the Cook state government to extend the fracking bans already in place across much of WA’s south through to the north of the state.

Valhalla is one of a host of gas projects currently being targeted by activists around Australia.

Woodside Energy has been fending off ongoing campaigns and court challenges over its plans to expand its operations on WA’s Burrup Peninsula, while Santos’ Barossa gas project was subject to a court challenge from a breakaway Indigenous group.

Opposition Leader Peter Dutton has vowed to cut federal funding for the Environmental Defenders Office, which has acted on behalf of Indigenous and environmental groups in some of those legal challenges.

Black Mountain delisted from the Australian Stock Exchange earlier this year.