{"id":814925,"date":"2026-07-21T18:51:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T18:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/814925\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T18:51:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T18:51:13","slug":"australian-oil-gas-co-wants-to-destroy-a-world-class-reef","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/814925\/","title":{"rendered":"Australian Oil & Gas Co. Wants To Destroy A World-Class Reef"},"content":{"rendered":"

Want to save Scott Reef? Fill out the petition here. <\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Slightly less than 300km from Australia and slightly more than 300km from Indonesia lie the twin coral atolls of Scott Reef. Covering more than 600km\u00b2, Scott Reef is Australia\u2019s largest oceanic reef system<\/a>, housing over 2000 marine animal species, dozens of them endangered, like the pygmy blue whale and dusky seasnake.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Apart from the occasional dive charter, and Indonesian fisherman plying their trade via traditional methods, Scott Reef, 24 hours by boat from Broome, has been largely left untouched by humanity. That status is also now endangered, with Australian oil and gas behemoth Woodside submitting a proposal to drill 57 gas wells into the surrounding Browse Basin, and a further seven carbon capture and storage wells into the seabed at the same time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to famed West Australian author and lifelong surfer Tim Winton, Scott Reef is Australia\u2019s \u201clast remote, unspoiled, undeveloped, clear water coral reef system\u201d. It needs to be protected at all costs, and Surfers For Climate<\/a> \u2013 who you might know from the crucial role they played in the Fight For The Bight, and having New South Wales\u2019 controversial PEP-11 proposal rejected \u2013 are asking you to play your part HERE<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Although Scott Reef is tucked a long way north into the Timor Sea, it might be home to some of the best waves you\u2019ll never experience. Surfers who\u2019ve been lucky enough to sample the atoll\u2019s numerous setups \u2013 lefts and rights, facing all directions \u2013 talk teasingly of their potential. Rising sharply from the seafloor some 500m below, swell is never an issue, the tricky part is landing light winds in a part of the world that alternates between the south-easterly trades of winter, and the storms and squalls of the north-westerly monsoon.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A pristine environment, extreme depth and unpredictable weather suggest an awful formula for safely drilling 60 wells into the seabed, and Western Australia\u2019s Environmental Protection Agency confirmed as much in 2024<\/a>, saying that the Browse proposal would have \u201cunacceptable environmental impacts\u201d for Scott Reef. Little has changed since then, apart from the federal government ignoring all the science and extending Woodside\u2019s North West Shelf project for an unprecedented 50 further years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The NWS extension has not only demolished any chance of Western Australia hitting its 2050 net-zero emissions goal and proven the state government\u2019s environmental policies are theatrical devices at best, it has also ensured that Woodside\u2019s Karratha gas processing facilities will keep operating until 2070, and given Woodside\u2019s fresh incentive to chase their most far-fetched of projects, consequences be damned. Suddenly but not surprisingly, Woodside are keener to drill deep into Scott Reef than ever before, and are attacking the project with renewed gusto.<\/p>\n

The Browse Project will be the emissions equivalent of building 12 new coal-fired power stations, and modelling from climate science expert Professor Sarah Perkins-Kirkpatrick states that those emissions would kill an extra 29 million coral colonies on the reef during every future mass bleaching event. To top it all, as Australians continue to pay more for gas, and more for the environmental fallout of fossil fuel usage, most of the gas from the Browse Basin will be exported overseas, royalty free<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a nutshell, Woodside taps into Australian owned gas reserves, ships the gas to countries that are not Australia, and keeps all the cash for themselves. As Australian rugby hero turned political force David Pocock succinctly states<\/a>, \u201cAussies pay more tax on beer than international gas companies pay on tens of billions of dollars worth of our offshore gas they export.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why should we care?<\/a> Out of sight, out of mind would not be the case should a gas spill occur, with mapping showing the catastrophic effects would reach from Western Australia\u2019s Kimberley Coast and World Heritage listed Ningaloo Reef, across the top end to Queensland\u2019s identically World Heritage listed Great Barrier Reef, and all the way north to the Indonesian islands of Rote and Sumba.\u00a0<\/p>\n

An accident is far from a mere hypothetical, with 2009\u2019s Montara oil spill<\/a> happening in this exact body of water. Two-thousands barrels of oil per day spilled into the ocean for 74 days straight, leaving a slick that covered 90,000km\u00b2 and caused over AUD300 million in damage. One of Australia\u2019s worst ever environmental disasters, the Montara oil spill eventually led to PTTEP Australasia paying AUD129 million in settlements to Indonesians who had lost their livelihoods, on top of the AUD40 million they\u2019d already spent on the cleanup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Woodside isn\u2019t owned by an oligarch, there\u2019s no Clive Palmer or Gina Rinehart calling the shots, it answers only to its shareholders. Through no choice of their own, many Australians are investors in Woodside as part of their superannuation funds, and in the past few years Woodside\u2019s AGMs have turned ugly, as shareholders push for change<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Worryingly, as the situation drags on in the Strait of Hormuz, rumours are surfacing that American companies are looking at diversifying internationally, and it seems that ExxonMobil might have their eyes on Woodside as a potential takeover target<\/a>. ExxonMobil are, of course, the same guys who spilled 11-millions gallons of oil into Alaska\u2019s Prince William Sound back in 1989. This is why we should care.<\/p>\n

What about jobs? It\u2019s cute to think that Chevron or Santos won\u2019t replace a human the second a robot is capable of performing their role, but until that happens you\u2019ll be hard pressed to find a FIFO worker who\u2019s struggling to land a gig regardless. If anything, the renewable energy sector is being held back because the manpower needed to take it to the next level is currently all locked up on mine sites, or out at sea. If there\u2019s a lesson to be learned from the current standoff in the Middle East, it\u2019s that the sooner we can leave our oil and gas dependency behind and move towards renewables, the better.<\/p>\n

As for the waves, John John Florence might sail past on Vela one day, and if Erik Knutson is manning his RED Raptor<\/a> then even just the thought of an edit should be reason enough for the Scott Reef atolls to be defended without question. Beyond that, think of surfing\u2019s bigger picture. As the world\u2019s lineups get more crowded, people are going to keep hunting farther and wider. Insane waves breaking in the middle of nowhere, with nobody to be seen for miles, is every surfer\u2019s dream. Who the hell are these guys to take away our dreams?<\/p>\n

What can you do? For the first time under Australian law, the Federal Environment Minister,
Murray Watt, has to weigh up whether to consider what a gas project would mean for the climate before approving it. In Woodside\u2019s case, that means answering what the emissions from its Browse Gas Project would do to the Great Barrier Reef, a World Heritage protected site whose health was listed as critical in 2020. In the Minister\u2019s case, that means accepting individual submissions from the Australian population\u2026 you!<\/p>\n

The good news is that surfers finally get to have a say on this matter, the bad news is that submissions close at midnight tonight, July 21. Surfers For Climate have created a form<\/a> that takes less than 30 seconds to complete and which will be counted as its own individual submission to the Environment Minister. Please fill it out H<\/a>E<\/a>RE<\/a>, then keep your fingers crossed. Thank you.<\/p>\n