10-year fracking ban in South Australia's south-east by Liberal government, after Labor funds gas search
South Australia's south east has concerns about effects of gas extraction on the area's limestone aquifers.
Image courtesy The Conversation
A decade-long ban on hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — in South Australia's Limestone Coast region was put in place by the Liberal state government in 2018. It supported a bill put forward by Mount Gambier independent MP Troy Bell, a former Liberal, who reflected concerns in the state’s south east about effects of gas extraction on the areas limestone aquifers.
South Australia’s Cooper Basin has seen fracking for almost 50 years. The previous Labor state government announced $24 million to encourage more gas exploration.
The PACE (Plan for Accelerating Exploration) Gas grants were part of the government’s six-point 2017 energy plan, aiming for more South Australian gas to replace coal-fired energy from Victoria. Examples of PACE Gas grants include: $6.89 million for the Santos-Beach Cooper Basin project to deploy a heat-energy recovery to offset natural gas used to run the Moomba petroleum processing; $5.26 million for the Senex Cooper Basin Gemba exploration/appraisal; $6.89 million for Beach /Cooper Energy’s Dombey project in the Otway Basin and $4.95 million to the Rawson/Vintage Nangwarry project in the Otway Basin.
A new, but controversial source in South Australia, may be from the underground coal gasification project that was being trialled in 2018 at the old Leigh Creek mine site in the state's north.
Oil and gas exploration spending in South Australia enjoyed a spurt in 2016, driven by drilling at 10 new wells in the Cooper Basin. It was the first significant upturn since the global oil price plunge in 2014. The gas industry faced spiralling prices and the impact of state government bans on gas fracking exploration in NSW and Victoria.
Long-time operator Senex Energy was expected to ramp up activity in the Cooper Basin in 2017-18.
Adelaide-based Oil and gas company Beach Energy, with Seven Group Holdings (22.9%) as largest shareholder, merged with Drillsearch Energy in 2016, to make the company the largest oil producer in the Cooper Basin and the region’s second largest gas producer.
Adelaide Brighton cement company moved to secure more gas supply for its energy-intensive operations through a deal with Strike Energy to source gas from its proposed multi-million dollar Cooper Basin operations. Strike has already signed deals with offtake partners Orica, Orora and Brickworks.
Cooper Energy’s focus has changed to bringing its Sole gas project off the Victoria coast into production to diversify away from oil production. Cooper Energy holds a half stake in Sole with the other held by Santos.
The state Liberal government 10-year moratorium on Limestone Coast gas fracking, promised at the state election, came after the Liberals sided with Labor to block a Greens bill that would have achieved the same thing. The government argued that ministerial direction to reject applications for fracking went far enough and that not enshrining the ban in law would prevent future governments from overturning it. But pressure from the state’s south east forced the moratorium.
The federal Coalition government repeated its call for states to lift their fracking bans or moratoriums after the Australian Energy Market Operator predicted a 19 petajoule gas shortfall in Victoria in 2022, equivalent to about 400,000 homes.
