Regulation of expanding Lake Eyre Basin gas industry criticised in new report

One of the studies, published in the international journal Marine and Freshwater Research, identifies 831 existing oil and gas production and exploration wells, mostly on the floodplains of Cooper Creek.

It includes 296 wells in the Coongie Lakes Ramsar site, an area identified at a state, national and international level as of significant conservation importance.

Lead author Professor Richard Kingsford, director of the Centre for Ecosystem Science, UNSW Sydney, said much of the early development occurred in South Australia but now Queensland has more wells, developed at respective rates of 8 and 11 wells per year.

"Even with my long history of involvement in protecting and researching the rivers of the Lake Eyre Basin, I was astounded at the scale of the current development, let alone what is planned in our so-called 'gas-led energy phase' in South Australia and Queensland," he said.

Prof Kingsford said the research, partially funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Centre for Ecosystem Science, UNSW Sydney and an Australian Research Council Linkage project on Ramsar wetlands, had identified major environmental concerns and poor assessment, using publicly available data from South Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory.

It used Sentinel satellite imagery to show that roads were interrupting natural flooding regimes and raised concerns about the co-produced water in storages on the floodplains intermingling with natural flood waters.

"This fragmenting of the floodplain and potential pollution locally and downstream during major floods will become an increasing problem, particularly with expected increases in unconventional gas production and fracking," a statement read.

"Recent photographs of Tirrawarra Swamp obtained in the last few weeks (show) that the current large flood has cut roads, overtopped well pads, leaving wells under water.

"Water from storages or excavated areas has clearly mixed with natural flood waters, showing potential challenges in stopping pollution impacts."

Prof Kingsford said these and projected developments of oil and gas across the floodplains of the Lake Eyre Basin rivers were not consistent with the Lake Eyre Basin Agreement, a multi-jurisdictional agreement between the Australian, Northern Territory, Queensland and South Australian governments.

The researchers identified eight development referrals that had been assessed under the Commonwealth's Environment Protection and Biodiversity Act 1999 in the time it was operational.

Prof Kingsford said he was surprised, given the potential impacts at national and international levels.

"This clearly shows a major flaw in the current national legislation - the inability to deal with lots of cumulative impacts, where each well pad, its potentially polluted water and the road network across the floodplains have increasing consequences for this magnificent river system and yet, are not assessed," he said.

He described it as an 'out of sight, out of mind' approach by regulators that was concerning, given the momentum to develop gas resources.

"We seem to be hell-bent on exporting our gas at the cost of the incredible environmental and cultural values of the rivers of the Lake Eyre Basin," he said. "It is high time we adequately assessed not only the contribution of these industries to climate change but their destruction of our pristine rivers and their floodplains."

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A second report, an economic analysis undertaken by Pegasus Economics shows any fracking projects in the Queensland section of the Lake Eyre Basin would be high cost, have high emissions, and be likely to rapidly become stranded assets, according to Lock the Gate Alliance.

The lobby group, which commissioned the report, said it demonstrated how carbon dioxide content from gas in the Cooper Basin averaged around 30 per cent - making it some of the highest carbon polluting gas in Australia.

"The high CO2 content of unconventional gas from the Cooper Basin puts it at a distinct competitive disadvantage compared to other gas fields where the CO2 content of the raw gas is much lower," the report states.

"Any requirement to offset emissions from the production of unconventional gas from the Cooper Basin in the Lake Eyre Basin will further erode its competitiveness given the high CO2 content of raw gas."

The report says the delivery cost of gas from the Cooper Basin is above $8.00/GJ, exceeding most projected wholesale prices predicted by the Australian Energy Market Operator.

The author concludes that any attempts by gas companies to mitigate these emissions with carbon capture and storage are likely to be insufficient, given "the majority of projects globally using CCS have had unique engineering challenges that have led to underperformance and cost blow-outs."

Lock the Gate spokesperson Ellie Smith said that apart from the social and environmental concerns they had with unconventional gas production, the report showed it wasn't viable in the region.

"It's likely Origin Energy identified many of the same risks outlined in this report by Pegasus Economics, given its recent decision to withdraw from upstream gas exploration in the region," she said.

Quoting those outcomes, Ms Smith called on the Palaszczuk government to extinguish Origin's tenements and ban fracking on the floodplains.

Origin Energy announced last week it was relinquishing its gas exploration permits in the Channel Country.

The report's findings come as the state government is considering whether fracking projects should be permitted in the floodplains of the Lake Eyre Basin following rounds of stakeholder consultation.