Oz Govt to Assess Beetaloo
The Beetaloo sub-basin in Australia’s Northern Territory has been selected as the third and final region to be assessed by the federal government’s Geological and Bioregional Assessment Program, which comes on the heels of the NT announcing it will lift the hydraulic fracturing moratorium in the region, minister for the environment and energy Josh Frydenberg said April 27.
“The program will assess the environmental safety of extracting gas from the region as the coalition government seeks to ensure that Australia can access our plentiful resources in a responsible way,” Frydenberg said.
The 28,000 km2 Beetaloo sub-basin lies southeast of Katherine in the Northern Territory and was selected for its high prospectivity, demonstrated shale gas flows and proximity to new pipeline infrastructure – “all of which make it an excellent candidate to deliver new gas supplies to the east coast gas market,” the government said.
Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan said initial estimates suggest the NT could be sitting on a “massive” gas resources of more than 200 years’ supply.
“Access to this gas could also attract new industries such as manufacturing and refining and create more new jobs in Northern Australia,” he said.
The A$30.4mn ($23mn) Geological and Bioregional Assessments Program is intended to produce data and tools that will assist regulators with planning, assessment and reporting, as well as giving industry a common information base to help inform decision-making.
The other regions which have been selected for assessment are the Cooper Basin, which spans south-west Queensland and north-east South Australia; and the Isa Superbasin, which covers parts of northern Queensland, extending east from the NT border.
The NT government announced on April 17 that it will lift the fracking moratorium which it imposed some 19 months earlier while an evaluation could be done on the impact the activity would have on the environment.
The studies as part of the Geological and Bioregional Assessments Program will be conducted by Geoscience Australia and the CSIRO, supported by the Bureau of Meteorology and managed by the Department of the Environment and Energy.
They will assess the geology, water quantity and quality of surface groundwater as well as protected environmental assets to determine the potential impacts and environmental safety of shale and tight gas developments.
Work on the assessment will begin in mid-2018. Assessments have already started in the other regions.