{"id":843997,"date":"2026-08-05T04:36:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T04:36:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/843997\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T04:36:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T04:36:13","slug":"nt-epa-prosecutes-gas-company-inpex-for-under-reporting-toxic-emissions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/843997\/","title":{"rendered":"NT EPA prosecutes gas company Inpex, for under-reporting toxic emissions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Northern Territory’s environmental regulator has charged Japanese gas giant Inpex for under-reporting the amount of toxic emissions it released from the Ichthys facility near Darwin.<\/p>\n

The NT Environment Protection Authority (EPA) said it decided to prosecute after Inpex in October said<\/a> it had significantly under-reported the level of benzene and toluene emissions between 2019 and 2024, which led to an EPA investigation.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the NT EPA said the under-reporting allegedly represented a breach of Inpex’s environmental licence to operate.<\/p>\n

“The NT EPA licences Ichthys LNG through an environment protection licence, originally granted on 13 December 2017,” the statement said.<\/p>\n

“Under the licence, Ichthys LNG is required to annually report total emissions to air in tonnes to the NT EPA.<\/p>\n

“In October 2025, Ichthys LNG informed the NT EPA of significant under-reporting of emissions from the Ichthys LNG facility. The NT EPA has now commenced prosecution in relation to this matter.”<\/p>\n

The NT EPA said it would not provide further comment while the case is before the courts.<\/p>\n

\"Inpex's<\/p>\n

Inpex has been the subject of scrutiny from both territory and national regulators. (ABC News: Dane Hirst)<\/p>\n

It is understood the matter will appear in Darwin Local Court, although a date is yet to be finalised, with Inpex facing six separate charges which, if proven, could lead to fines of more than $60,000 each.<\/p>\n

The federal Department of Climate Change, Energy, and the Environment has also been investigating since October.<\/p>\n

The NT EPA recently recommended changes to the licences of Darwin’s two major gas processing companies, Santos and Inpex, after Inpex’s under-reporting triggered a review<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Benzene is known to cause some cancers and toluene can irritate the eyes, skin and respiratory tract.<\/p>\n

ABC reporting in 2024 revealed the Ichthys facility emitted thousands of tonnes more pollution than permitted<\/a> with no assessment or regulatory intervention from the NT government.<\/p>\n

Environment Centre NT senior climate campaigner Bree Ahrens said the environmental authority had “done the right thing” by prosecuting Inpex.<\/p>\n

She called for the recommended changes to Santos’s and Inpex’s licences be implemented in full.<\/p>\n

“This is a massive win for Darwin residents who have been exposed to toxic pollution from the gas industry for far too long,” she said.<\/p>\n

“Accurate reporting of toxic pollutants is a basic expectation, but it doesn\u2019t go far enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“In the coming months, the NT EPA will have the opportunity to introduce license changes for Inpex and Santos to cap toxic emissions. Darwin and Palmerston residents want to see the NT EPA use its full powers to make sure this never happens again.”<\/p>\n

Inpex was contacted for comment.<\/p>\n

In October last year the company said the under-reporting occurred due to a calculation error, and had not resulted in an “increased health risk to the community”.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Northern Territory’s environmental regulator has charged Japanese gas giant Inpex for under-reporting the amount of toxic emissions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":843998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,2025,1108,13442,75,11053,146792,1098,416027],"class_list":["post-843997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-charges","tag-court","tag-emissions","tag-environment","tag-gas","tag-inpex","tag-nt","tag-prosecute"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=843997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/843997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/843998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=843997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=843997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=843997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}