Woodside awaits Ministerial approval for Browse-NWS project

15th September 2022 By: Esmarie Iannucci - Creamer Media Senior Deputy Editor: Australasia

Woodside awaits Ministerial approval for Browse-NWS project

Photo by: Bloomberg

PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Australian energy major Woodside has published the final environmental impact statement (EIS) for the proposed Browse to North West Shelf (NWS) project.

The final EIS includes responses to comments received during the public consultation process held over an eight-week period from December 2019 to February 2020. A total of 19 899 submissions were received from the public.

Issues raised by the submissions included greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, potential impacts to rock at in Burrup Peninsula, potential impacts on threatened and migratory marine fauna and impacts on wetlands.

Woodside reviewed the submissions and developed responses to common themes.

The Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) will now prepare its recommendation report on the project and provide it to the Minister.

Woodside CEO Meg O'Neill said moving into the assessment phase for the proposed project was a significant and positive step in the regulatory approval process.

“The final EIS provides comprehensive detail of potential environmental impacts, proposed mitigations and management measures. The processing of Browse gas through the Karratha gas plant could provide energy needed in Western Australia and overseas, while providing jobs and taxation revenue that support our host communities,” she said.

Key work activities continue in support of progress towards front-end engineering design entry.

The corresponding state environmental review document response to submissions will also be published once accepted by the Western Australian Environmental Protection Authority.

The proposed Browse to NWS project would send feed gas from fields in the offshore Browse Basin to be processed at the NWS project’s Karratha gas plant. The proposed Browse to NWS project could contribute to energy security in Western Australia and in the Asia Pacific region, with production capacity of 11.4-million tonnes per year.

Greenpeace Australia on Thursday said the climate and environmental impacts listed in the EIS was ‘unacceptable’.

Greenpeace Australia Pacific’s head of clean energy transition Jess Panegyres said that despite widespread Australian and international condemnation, Woodside has barely altered its dangerous plans for Browse. 

“The final EIS for Browse makes clear Woodside’s reckless determination to push through this toxic gas field, despite the enormous risk it poses to the global climate and to Western Australia’s unique marine wildlife.

“The United Nations and the International Energy Agency have been clear that the world cannot have new fossil fuel projects if we want to stay within the 1.5 degree Paris target. Woodside’s Browse is a dirty project and inconsistent with the Paris Agreement.

“Woodside plans to drill 50 gas wells directly under a coral reef, one of the most ecologically important marine environments in the world. A slight variation to the Browse proposal that Woodside made earlier this year makes little difference to the project’s devastating marine impacts, with the plans revealed today showing Woodside still plans to drill in endangered turtle nesting areas, and in crucial foraging and migration areas for pygmy blue whales.

“Woodside has also made no effort to reduce or mitigate the approximately 1.6-billion tonnes of climate pollution that Browse will spew out over its lifetime. Rather than making any genuine effort to reduce its emissions Woodside is once again greenwashing its impact by relying on ineffective offsets. As Australia and communities around the world suffer increasingly catastrophic climate impacts, Woodside’s reckless disregard for the climate is unacceptable,” Pangyres said.

The EIS pointed out that the Browse and Scarborough projects could avoid 650-million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions, 392-million tonnes for the proposed Browse project, between 2026 and 2040 by replacing higher emission fuels in countries that need Woodside’s energy. This meant for every tonne of GHG emitted in Australia from these proposed Woodside operated projects, this equated to about four tonnes in emissions reduced globally.

The report noted that if Browse gas is used to generate power in the target markets, it will release between 591-million tonnes CO2 equivalent and 595-million tonnes CO2 equivalent over the 2026-2040 period.

If other fossil fuels are used to generate electricity during the same period, then emissions would be 936-million tonnes CO2 equivalent over the 2026-2040 period.