Coal seam gas company pushes to drill hundreds of new wells at off-limits Queensland site

A coal seam gas company has proposed drilling hundreds of new wells in an area the Queensland government previously declared off-limits after one of the state’s worst environmental contamination disasters.

Arrow Energy, a joint venture between Shell and PetroChina, has lodged an application to amend its environmental authority for a petroleum lease at Hopeland in the western downs, which forms part of the company’s Surat gas project.

Hopeland was the site of the failed Linc Energy underground coal gasification (UCG) project, which was found to have caused serious environmental harm after toxic gases escaped through fractured rock.

The Queensland government created an environmental condition that prevents Arrow from locating any coal seam gas wells within a 10km radius of the Linc Energy site under the state approval covering one of its petroleum leases, known as PL493.

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But the company gained approval under a separate neighbouring lease, known as PL253, to prepare six pilot wells for production that are located within the no-go zone.

The company has now applied to increase the number of wells covered by that lease to 286.

It has also sought approval to construct 440km of water and gas pipelines.

The anti-mining group Lock the Gate said the application, if approved, would mean many new wells were drilled within the 10km exclusion zone and landholders were concerned about risks to groundwater.

Brian Bender, whose property is within 10km of the former Linc project, said he did not believe there should be any CSG activity near the site and the exclusion zone should cover all leases that fell within the 10km radius.

“I’m a firm believer nothing should be done until the Linc Energy situation is fully resolved and at this stage it is simply not resolved,” he said.

“The risk of further contamination is too great. Until all the information regarding the damage has been released, there should be no drilling at that location.”

Bender said he wanted to see more data from Queensland’s environment department, or an independent expert, about the condition the former Linc site and land in its vicinity was in and whether the area covered by PL253 was safe for drilling.

“The department are still drilling water monitoring bores on the outside of the property,” he said.

“If they are still putting water monitoring bores on the outside of the site, they must still be looking for information.”

In its application, Arrow Energy said it had installed water monitoring bores between 100 metres and 1km of the former Linc site and detected no contaminants related to the UCG operation.

A company spokesman said both the lease for PL253 and the application to amend it excluded the former Linc site.

He said Arrow had been safely producing gas from the six pilot wells in the area since 2014.

The spokesman said the new application was supported by extensive modelling by Arrow and independent third parties and included data taken from groundwater monitoring over the past three years.

“This data, and longer-term regional data, shows that Arrow’s development will have a negligible to low level of impact on groundwater movement from the former Linc Energy site,” he said.

“Arrow has committed to rigorous ongoing monitoring and reporting from this area over the duration of the project.”

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But Mark Ogge, a principal adviser at the Australia Institute, said the proposal, and Arrow Energy’s modelling, should be evaluated by independent experts.

“Hopefully the Queensland government has learned from its failure to prevent the contamination disaster at the Linc UCG project, and won’t be foolish enough to allow Shell to drill hundreds of CSG wells within the disaster exclusion zone,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Queensland Department of Environment and Science said the former Linc site itself was excluded from PL253 and Arrow Energy could not drill there.

However, the spokesperson said the site “is a key consideration in the assessment of this application” because of its proximity to PL253.

The spokesperson said the condition preventing any CSG wells within a 10km radius under PL493 remained in place because the department found “there was insufficient evidence to support wells within 10km to the former Linc site”.

The department did not explain why this condition had so far not been imposed for the neighbouring lease PL253.