Environmental challenge just a bad memory as Santos gets final light for Timor Sea gas pipeline

Gas giant Santos says its $5.8bn Timor Sea pipeline was expected to produce its first gas in the third quarter of the year after it overcame a ‘distorted’ environmental challenge.

Protesters gather at the front of the Federal Court at the height of the dispute.

Gas giant Santos has cleared the final regulatory hurdle for its $5.8bn offshore pipeline in the Timor Sea to the north of Australia, overcoming a long and expensive legal battle against environmentalists.

Australia’s offshore energy regulator, NOPSEMA, this week gave the green light to the last major approvals required before the commissioning of the Barossa project, which will pipe gas to the Darwin LNG facility and create 350 jobs over the next 20 years.

The Environmental Defenders Office (EDO) in 2023 launched a failed bid to scuttle the development of the gas field and associated 262km underwater pipeline near the Tiwi ­Islands on Indigenous cultural grounds.

The EDO was ordered last November to pay Santos more than $9m in costs which it incurred defending itself against the legal action.

The Federal Court found the claim was based on a “distorted and manipulated” assertion that the pipeline would disturb the travels of a rainbow serpent sacred to the Tiwi Islanders.

Santos on Tuesday said that the pipeline was expected to produce its first gas in the third quarter of the year and within cost guidances.

The company said the project would create about 600 jobs throughout the construction phase and secure about 350 jobs for the next 20 years of production at the Darwin LNG facility.

The Northern Territory government estimates $2.5bn worth of wages and contracts are expected to flow to Territorians from the projects during that time.

Santos said the entire project was now 95.2 per cent finished, and the main pipeline and Darwin pipeline duplication was complete.

The majority of subsea infrastructure has been installed and the commissioning of a floating production storage and offloading vessel is more than 90 per cent complete.

Four wells have been drilled and completed, with a fifth suspended for later completion.

Santos has cleared the final hurdle for its Timor Sea project.

Australia is one of the world’s largest LNG exporters, but domestic manufacturers have complained of elevated prices triggered by a global energy shortage. Australia’s eastern seaboard is experiencing a rapidly dwindling supply which threatens to prolong higher prices.

The legal battle against Barossa underscored growing concerns that major resource projects of national importance were being delayed on dubious cultural grounds.

Academic, legal and activist ­figures in the EDO had concocted a rainbow ­serpent and crocodile man “­songline map” based on guesswork and minimal consultation with ­Indigenous leaders, according to court documents.

The EDO’s proceedings were commenced in October 2023, two days prior to when construction of the pipeline was due to start and three-and-a-half years after an environment plan had been approved and made publicly available by NOPSEMA.

Federal Court judge Natalie Charlesworth concluded “that the cultural mapping exercise and the related opinions expressed about it are so lacking in integrity that no weight can be placed on them”. The Barossa case was not the first involving a claim of ­cultural songlines in the blocking of major projects.

Woodside Energy was ordered to stop seismic work at its $16.5bn Scarborough gas project off the West Australian coast after Indigenous activist group Save Our Songlines successfully secured an injunction from the Federal Court.

The group had argued that the seismic blasting could interfere with songlines connected to whales and turtles in the area. That injunction proved short-lived, and Woodside secured fresh approvals allowing it to go ahead with the work just two months later.

Last year, a plan by Regis Resources to develop a $1bn gold mine near ­Blayney in central NSW was delayed after federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek blocked plans for a tailings dam. Her decision was based on claim by a breakaway Indigenous group ­that the dam could interfere with the songlines of the blue-banded bee.

The Orange Land Council – the main body representing traditional owners of the region – has disputed the validity of that claim.

Santos shares closed 4c lower at $5.61 on Tuesday. The stock was trading as high as $8.18 in July last year.

Originally published as Environmental challenge just a bad memory as Santos gets final light for Timor Sea gas pipeline