Equinor Says Thanks But No Thanks To Deep Water Drilling Plan In Australia
Credit to Author: Steve Hanley| Date: Tue, 25 Feb 2020 16:38:04 +0000
Published on February 25th, 2020 | by Steve Hanley
February 25th, 2020 by Steve Hanley
It’s happening. Can you feel it? The economics that underpin the fossil fuel industry are crumbling. More and more projects that would pump millions more tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere are being cancelled because they just don’t pencil out anymore in a world where renewable energy gets cheaper every day.
Just in the last 48 hours, the Constitution natural gas pipeline project in upstate New York was cancelled and a huge new tar sands development in Alberta was taken off the table. Today brings news that Equinor, the Norwegian energy company formerly known as Statoil, has dropped its plans to drill for oil in the Australian Bight Marine Park located in South Australia near the border with Western Australia.
Image credit: Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2020.
The Guardian reports that Equinor has informed local, state, and federal officials it will not move forward with plans to drill in the marine park despite the fact that it has received all necessary permits and approvals to do so. Previously, BP and Chevron also decided not to drill in the area. If there is any oil in the area, it is located beneath 2.2 kilometers of open ocean about 400 kilometers offshore.
“Following a holistic review of its exploration portfolio, Equinor has concluded that the project’s potential is not commercially competitive compared with other exploration opportunities in the company,’’ the company’s country manager for Australia, Jone Stangeland, said in a statement.
The proposed drilling has been vehemently opposed by environmental and Indigenous groups. Peter Owen, South Australian director of the Wilderness Society, said, “It’s been a while coming, but the right decision is the right decision, and we have no doubt that the hundreds of thousands of people that have supported the campaign to fight for the Bight will be both delighted and relieved to hear this news.”
He called on the Morrison government to “listen to the people and permanently protect the unique waters of the Great Australian Bight from drilling for good.” [Fat chance of the tone deaf ScoMo crazies doing that, Peter. They have pillow speakers repeating “Drill, baby, drill,” every night while their sleep.] Noah Schultz-Byard, director of the Australia Institute in South Australia, said his group’s polling suggests “an overwhelming majority of people” support the Great Australian Bight being listed as a World Heritage site.
“Sarah Hanson Young, a spokesperson for the Greens party and a South Australian senator, called on other parties to back Greens’ legislation that would put the Bight forward for world heritage protection.“
“Opening a new fossil fuel basin in the middle of our ocean was always madness,” she said. Moving to net zero emissions by 2050 means we must reduce pollution now, not give the green light to new polluting projects.”
The federal minister for resources, Keith Pitt, said the government was disappointed about Equinor’s decision, but pleased the company had made clear it would still be part of the oil and gas industry in Australia. It said the decision would be “particularly hard for South Australia.”
[He is referring to all the money and jobs the project would have generated. Sadly, South Australia only gets weak sunshine a few days a year and the wind never blows there.]
He said the government remained committed to “encouraging the safe development of Australia’s offshore petroleum resources. “The Bight basin remains one of Australia’s frontier basins and any proposals for new oil and gas fields in this area will be assessed fairly and independently,” he said.
[Translation: we will approve any and all applications despite the destruction of the environment and the wishes of the people.]
Matthew Doman, CEO of the Australian Petroleum and Production and Exploration Association said: “The proposed exploration activity had been subject to an extreme campaign of false and exaggerated claims that deliberately overstated the risks and ignored the potential benefits.” Such acid-laced comments are typical of people who see their revenue stream threatened.
Image credit: USGS
Have you ever watched a glacier break apart and add an iceberg to the ocean? It starts slowly, and then suddenly a huge chunk of ice breaks off and tumbles into the sea. That’s what’s happening to the fossil fuel industry. It sees itself as some immutable force that will endure forever, but the ground beneath its feet is shifting, making its business model unstable.
What a delicious irony that the same global warming that is making glaciers disappear will also make the fossil fuel industry disappear. The only question is, how soon will it be before the Earth is finally free of the scourge of fossil fuels?
Hat tip to Steve_S.
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Steve Hanley Steve writes about the interface between technology and sustainability from his homes in Florida and Connecticut or anywhere else the Singularity may lead him. You can follow him on Twitter but not on any social media platforms run by evil overlords like Facebook.