Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just last week it was revealed that an unknown number of disused gas wells in 26 locations in my home state of Western Australia—in the Legendre gas field, which is 105 kilometres north of Dampier off the Pilbara coast—have been leaking for at least 10 years. To add insult to the injury, these leaks are apparently impossible to fix. These wells are owned by Santos, who are being sued over clean fuel claims, who were challenged in the Federal Court over their so-called consultation for their Barossa project and who were involved in the controversial LNG project in Papua New Guinea.

These leaks were first spotted by an underwater remotely-operated vehicle in 2013—two years after work had been done to seal these wells permanently. So not only have these wells been leaking for 10 years but also Santos have actually known about this for 10 years, which begs the question: why are only now we finding out about this? CSIRO have, in fact, been engaged, and Santos have been providing their own solutions to the regulator. In fact, Santos has submitted a plan to NOPSEMA that rejected action to address the leaks, saying, 'It's not technically feasible.' In the opinion of Santos we should just keep watching these wells for the next five years. This is completely unacceptable. We cannot let these companies monitor themselves.

This raises concerns about the number of wells that have actually been sealed and that are leaking gas into the ocean that we don't know about. There are approximately 873 offshore wells. How many of those are leaking? This is just another example of the social licence that these companies are rapidly dwindling. We need stronger laws and regulations. We need to move away from fossil fuels.