It was a significant setback to Woodside\u2019s plan to drill more than 50 wells and pipe the gas 1,000km to its ageing North West Shelf gas export plant adjacent to the world heritage-listed Murujuga rock art.<\/a><\/p>\n The company won approval last year to run the North West Shelf until 2070. But it needs the gas from the Browse basin \u2013 Australia\u2019s largest undeveloped source of gas \u2013 to feed it. If the processing plant was to operate until 2070 it could lead to about 88m tonnes of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere each year<\/a> after the gas was burned.<\/p>\n Scott Reef off the coast of Western Australia is home to more than 1,500 species. It sits over the underwater Browse gas basin. Photograph: Greenpeace<\/p>\n The concerns presented in the letter to the EPA board show the pressure on authorities to recommend against the gasfield development being approved. The development is being assessed by both the state and commonwealth EPAs. Ultimate decision-making power lies with environment ministers.<\/p>\n The letter shows the EPA board was advised by its staff that there was a threat of serious or irreversible harm to turtles and whales and more generally due to oil spills. The threats were considered serious enough that the staff said the precautionary principle should be invoked. It meant the EPA should assume the worst possible outcomes could occur.<\/p>\n In response to this near rejection of its proposal, Woodside added explosive-driven shear rams to its drilling plans, a step that could allow it to seal a leaking well in seconds. The company said this would reduce the \u201clongest credible duration\u201d of a \u201chighly unlikely\u201d well blowout, and potential oil spill, to about 12 hours.<\/p>\n Not all companies have faith in shear ram technology. In 2024, fellow WA gas exporter Chevron rejected \u201cpyrotechnic shearing\u201d technology for its own wells, describing it as unproven and impossible to test in the field.<\/p>\n A Woodside spokesperson said if the shear rams failed it would deploy a capping stack to stop the oil flow within 16 days.<\/p>\n But the EPA was advised in 2023 that if a well leaked for 13 days it was possible there could be \u201cirreversible consequences\u201d to Scott Reef.<\/p>\n Greenpeace activists protesting Woodside\u2019s proposed Browse project on Scott Reef deploy a banner at the company\u2019s Scarborough gas platform off the coast of Western Australia on 17 October. Photograph: Greenpeace\/Reuters<\/p>\n The draft letter said Sandy Islet, a part of Scott Reef considered critical to the survival of endangered green turtles, would be threatened if the seabed subsided after Woodside extracted gas from beneath it. It said a proposal to top up the sand on the islet, where about 1,000 turtles breed each year, was a \u201chigh-risk\u201d measure and its success was \u201clikely to be limited\u201d.<\/p>\n Woodside said it would address this by changing its plans so that no wells would be drilled within 20km of Sandy Islet. It also said the flaring of gas, which produces bright light that can confuse turtle\u2019s navigation, would be restricted.<\/p>\n
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