Ports Victoria raises concerns over Viva’s gas terminal project

COMMUNITY opponents of Viva Energy’s proposed gas terminal have doubled down on their calls for the project to be canned, after Ports Victoria raised concerns that crucial risk assessments are yet to be undertaken.

Slated for Corio Bay, the terminal would use a vessel known as a floating storage and regasification unit to store and convert LNG back into natural gas, and would see visiting carriers transport LNG from other parts of Australia and overseas into the bay.

Proponents have suggested the project will play an important role in mitigating looming gas shortfalls and providing a reliable back-up for renewable energy generation.

But in a letter to a Victorian inquiry on the project, Ports Victoria’s head of development Stuart Christie and harbour master Nick Ellul said Viva Energy had still not made sufficient progress on navigation, mooring and emergency departure risk assessments for the project.

“Ports Victoria is cognisant that the studies undertaken to date… do not adequately determine whether the scope of operations are achievable within the proposed footprint without further modifications exceeding the design scope,” Christie and Ellul said.

They noted similar project risk assessments undertaken in other state jurisdictions have shown “reconfiguration of shipping channels may be necessary to enable safe navigation of the LNG carriers, and to mitigate the deleterious effects of the trade on the other users of the port.”

Christie and Ellul said Ports Victoria had now expressed its concerns on several occasions, both during the first environmental effects statement inquiry held into the project and subsequently directly with Viva Energy.

“We continue to support the project on the basis that Viva can demonstrate safe navigation, and mooring can be achieved in line with international standards and without negative consequences for other users of the ports.”

For Geelong Renewables Not Gas – a coalition of local community groups, including Geelong Sustainability and Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), the letter serves to validate its ongoing concerns about the project.

ACF treasurer Peter Chomley said the full environmental impact of the terminal could not be understood until Viva Energy had worked with Ports Victoria to complete the requested risk assessments.

“This letter from Ports Victoria regarding the missing navigational safety studies has confirmed our concerns that we still do not know if the bay can be safely transited by huge LNG tankers and that there may be considerably more dredging required to make Corio Bay navigable for these ships.”

Geelong Sustainability campaign co-ordinator Karina Donkers said the coalition was hoping the Planning Minister would hold off on approving the project until Viva Energy has done their “due diligence”.

She called for a “holistic” environmental effects statement to be provided to ensure transparency and to allow the community “a real say on the [project’s] footprint and its impacts on the community and on the bay”.

Local opponents will gather at North Shore’s Moorpanyal Park on February 23 to protest the gas import terminal by creating a “human sign”.

Viva Energy has been contacted for comment.