Gas rush reaches a tipping point

BIG gas has always known about the massive reserves of coal-seam gas locked deep below the surface from central Queensland to southern Victoria.

BIG gas has always known about the massive reserves of coal-seam gas locked deep below the surface from central Queensland to southern Victoria.

It's just that in the past, the leading miners have reasoned why would they bother drilling 5000 wells onshore to get the same result as one offshore well of the calibre of Goodwyn A on the North-West Shelf.

This explains why exploration of the coal-seam gas resource has been left mainly to small-market players who have gone about their business largely unnoticed.

But with booming world demand for energy and the reserves in place, over the past five years big gas, such as British Gas and Shell, has swept up the smaller players and committed the billions of dollars necessary to process and export it mainly to Asian markets.

The Queensland government has been quick to get on board. And some landholders have certainly been happy to allow drilling for coal-seam gas to take place on their properties.

But as the gas rush has moved from grazing pastures to prime agriculture and on to more closely settled communities it has sparked the sort of social concerns that big companies must have known were inevitable when they elected to concentrate their attentions on offshore wells such as Goodwyn A.

The mounting campaign against coal-seam gas is environmental and emotional. A national coalition of groups has formed under the banner, Lock the Gate, in a bid to stop exploration companies from getting access to farming properties.

The companies argue that landholders they have worked with have been happy to have them and will receive annual compensation payments that will droughtproof their properties in the lean times.

But not everyone has been happy to talk.

Eventually, to secure the volumes of gas needed to satisfy the onshore processing investment and fill export contracts, the gas companies will be forced to move into what has become hostile territory.

The argument is that as mineral rights belong to the crown, property owners must allow the companies access for exploration.

But the extent of these powers is yet to be fully tested in the courts.

Environmentally, concerns have largely been sparked by revelations in the documentary, Gasland, that highlights problems caused by the shale-oil gas rush in the US.

The gas industry says the documentary is inaccurate and that production of shale-oil gas and coal-seam gas are different.

But farm and environment groups continue to warn about the potential dangers posed by coal-seam gas production to groundwater supplies and the Great Artesian Basin.

Another concern is the large volume of saltwater that is produced with the gas. Millions of dollars have already been invested on Queensland's Darling Downs in reverse osmosis water treatment plants to remove salt before groundwater raised with coal seam gas can be released back into the environment.

But treated water has its own environmental concerns because it has been stripped of minerals.

Federal Environment Minister Tony Burke says he is confident that the right controls are in place.

To safeguard the Great Artesian Basin, environmental approvals demand that companies test whether underground gas and water reservoirs are contained or connected to adjoining aquifers.

If they are connected, companies must reinject water to repressurise them.

"The danger is if you leave the water out and you don't do this and it's porous then you'll effectively get a sucking back of the water, which won't have an immediate effect on the Great Artesian Basin because the water moves so slowly, but if you get a sucking back over time you have an entirely unacceptable impact," Burke says.

"Some people want a precautionary approach to mean that you just never go down a path of new technology, but I don't think that's smart. I think you need to go down an adaptive management path where if there is something you are not sure you need to test it every time," he says.