The Queensland government has opened nine new areas for gas exploration across 16,000 sq kilometres in a step environmentalists say will only worsen the climate crisis.
The state’s natural resources minister, Dale Last, said the move would make Queensland more attractive for gas industry investment and would help bring down gas prices and ease the supply pressures on the east coast.
The government said it was also starting a three-month review into the way exploration areas were identified and then released for tender, to make the process more efficient.
Opened up for tender from tomorrow will be nine areas across the Cooper-Eromanga basin in the south-west and the Bowen-Surat basin in the state’s centre.
Land releases would not overlap with areas in the Channel Country region where flood plains and rivers have been protected from further oil and gas extraction.
The areas open for tender from Thursday include conventional gas and places where more technically challenging reserves might require hydraulic fracturing.
Last said: “The best way to bring down energy prices is to have more energy in the market, and that starts with exploration.
“These steps are about unlocking new supply, securing an investment pipeline and getting the right policy settings in place so Queensland can lead the way on energy security.”
Gas industry group Australian Energy Producers said the move would be a “critical step” in securing future gas supplies.
Last week, the Crisafulli government rejected a proposal for a $1bn windfarm that would have provided enough clean power for about 260,000 homes. The government said its decision was based on a rejection of the proposal by 88% of residents and a local council.
Dave Copeman, the director of the Queensland Conservation Council, said the announcement was “devastating and deceitful”.
He said: “The government should be ashamed to look Queenslanders impacted by climate-fuelled disasters in the eye and pretend that they care while greenlighting new fossil fuel projects that will only turbocharge these impacts on our communities and country.”
He said federal data suggested there was enough gas in just the Bowen Basin to release more than 1bn tonnes of CO2 if it was all extracted and burned.
“That’s more extra climate pollution than the total Queensland can release between now and 2035 if we are to meet our emissions reduction targets. And this is only one of the four basins mentioned in today’s low detail announcement.”
He questioned whether the gas would make it to the domestic market, as no company was planning to pipe gas south from the Bowen basin to Victoria.
Ellen Roberts, the national coordinator for climate campaign group Lock the Gate, said the announcement “will only benefit multinational gas companies, not the people of Queensland”.
She said there were already 16,000 gas wells drilled in Queensland that put groundwater relied on by farmers and communities at risk.
“We need an urgent moratorium on the gas expansions in Queensland to prevent further damage to land, water and our climate,” she said.
