It has been one year since EnvA launched as appeal in the Land Court against the grant of an environmental authority to Blue Energy Limited (Blue), so we thought it was time for an update.
A brief background since it has been a while. Blue applied for, and was granted, approval to develop hundreds of coal seam gas wells over three petroleum leases near to Moranbah. The project was to span across more than 1000 ha, which included prime habitat for koalas, greater gliders, and squatter pigeons. Their application was very incomplete with no environmental assessment of two of the three petroleum lease areas. A full list of EnvA’s concerns is in our original submission.
Where is the case up to?
The pleadings stage is now finalised which means all the parties have put forward their case in response to concerns and all the parties have had an opportunity to ask each other for further information about their respective positions.
Blue Energy then changed their project
Since the approval was granted, Blue Energy has withdrawn two of its petroleum lease applications relevant to the project, but they have applied to keep them as potential commercial areas which allows them to retain an interest in the areas. This means that Blue Energy is now only seeking that the approval only covers one petroleum lease – the Sapphire Tenement.
EnvA’s case
We are still raising serious concerns about Blue Energy’s proposal, including significant impacts to groundwater and biodiversity.
Blue Energy’s initial application did not contain an assessment of greenhouse gas emissions, so we are asking for improved assessment of the project to ensure that the GHG emissions are properly calculated, and the contribution of Blue Energy’s proposal to climate change is properly assessed.
EnvA is also raising concerns with regard to misinformation put forward by the petroleum and gas industry about the need for any new gas projects in the transition to net zero.
What are the next steps?
The parties have now nominated their experts who will provide evidence in the proceedings on the grounds outlined above. There will be some out of court meetings for the experts to pin down the areas that the parties can agree to, and areas where the court will need to hear the evidence and decide the merit of the project approval.
EnvA - CQ 