A coal seam gas company plans to explore sites in St Peters and the Greater Sydney area despite a recent protest on King St involving enraged residents.
Dart Energy’s licence for coal seam gas (CSG) exploration in the Sydney Basin expires this month and activists are calling for the license to be revoked.
Spokesperson for local activist group Stop CSG-Sydney Jacinta Green said the NSW Minister for Resources and Energy, Chris Hartcher, holds the power to stop Dart Energy.
According to the group, Dart Energy had not complied with all the license conditions including a commitment to a “minimum work program” which requires the company to produce reports on the exploration of environmental and core-hole impacts by the end of 2010. They said some conditions had still not been met in 2011.
In a letter to Mr Hartcher, the group said he had the power to cancel the license if it “fails to fulfil or contravenes any of the conditions of the title”. The group also highlighted the lack of public consultation on the matter.
The group wrote: “Stop CSG-Sydney also has an issue with the consistent ranking of ‘low’ relating to public concern on the biological and pollution impacts.”
“The public was unaware of the application and no community consultation had been undertaken so we fail to see how the license applicant could make these claims.”
In a written response to Alternative Media Group, a Dart Energy spokesperson said their current license conditions did not cover production or commercial extraction, only exploration.
“Dart has said for the past three to four months it has NO PLANS to drill a core hole at St Peters either this year 2011 or 2012 and is only undertaking ‘desktop studies’ of the Sydney area at the moment whilst is [sic] focuses on exploration at Newcastle,” he said. The company intends to renew its license.
“As many people would be aware NSW had a lengthy moratorium on CSG activity earlier this year which delayed industry activity on a number of exploration licenses.”
At the time of publication, Stop CSG-Sydney had not received a response from Mr Hartcher’s office to their letter dated September 5, 2011.
By Clare Blumer
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