NO OIL Shire’s formal submission slams bight oil drilling proposal

THE Surf Coast Shire has further affirmed its opposition to a proposal to drill oil in the Great Australian Bight, arguing the company behind the plan has failed to consider several critical issues, especially regarding the environmental impacts of an oil spill.

Equinor holds two exploration permits in the bight off the South Australian coast but there has been considerable local opposition to the proposal, including a petition with more than 500 signatures submitted to the shire in November and a “Paddle Out for the Bight” event at Cosy Corner earlier this month that attracted about 2,000 people.

In December, the shire became one of the first Victorian councils to officially register its opposition to oil drilling in the bight, and has since made a submission to the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) regarding Equinor’s draft Environmental Plan (EP).

In their submission, the council states the EP has failed to fully identify or analyse a number of areas, with one of these being the potential scale of an oil spill.

The worst-case scenario for an oil spill being capped and stopped is 102 days and the shire acknowledges the likelihood of this is low, but the EP’s own modelling assumes 6,720 cubic metres of oil will be released into the environment every day for those 102 days.

“685,440 cubic metres of oil spilled (approximately 16.3 times the amount of oil spilled from the Exxon Valdez) in an unacceptable amount of oil to potentially be released in any area, let alone an area of global conservation significance.

“The EP fails to fully identify and address the environmental impacts and environmental risks of an oil risk of this potential scale and duration along an extensive length of the Australian coast from the Eyre Peninsula to southern Victoria and north-west Tasmania. This is a fundamental deficiency with Equinor’s EP.”

In the EP, Equinor say they “strive to be recognised as an industry leader in safety, security and carbon efficiency, and believe that all accidents related to people, environment and assets can be prevented”.

The company states the base case for its proposal would result in 1,361 workers being employed during construction, a $3.2 billion increase in Australia’s real income per annum, and $1.7 billion in tax being paid to South Australia and the federal government every year.

Councillors were to ratify the submission to NOPSEMA at their meeting this week.