ANTI-GAS mining activists will chain themselves to gates and possibly defy directions from regional police to stop Beach Energy’s $15m proposed exploratory conventional drilling program near Penola.
This was the message yesterday from passionate protesters who rallied outside the Beach Energy information day in Mount Gambier yesterday.
Hundreds of people signed anti-gas exploration leaflets distributed by the Limestone Coast Protection Alliance at four information days across the region this week.
Limestone Coast Protection Alliance chair Merilyn Paxton yesterday fired a fresh warning shot to energy companies that the community would not stand by and allow them to gain a larger foothold in the South East.
Ms Paxton said the alliance was organising a level of activism never witnessed in the region to stop the drilling of proposed new conventional Haselgrove-3 well.
“We are going to make it extremely difficult all the long the way,” she said.
Explaining drilling for the Haselgrove-3 was expected to begin in August, she vowed activists were determined to stop the process.
“We will be there at the drilling sites before they start. Will we do whatever we can do get in the way,” Ms Paxton said.
“We will take non-violent direct action. If the police ask us to move, we probably won’t – it may get to that point.”
While Beach Energy had been drilling in the Penola district for some decades, she said the situation had shifted because of the upswing in demand for gas exports.
“The conditions have changed, they have been drilling one solitary well and providing a bit of gas, but seven years ago we started exporting gas – and the rush is on,” the prominent activist said.
She warned it would start with one well and mushroom from there.
“We think this is the real threat. If this new well goes well, then they will do more – this well is just the beginning.”
Explaining the protesters had been “peaceful and friendly”, she said 99pc of people flowing into the information session had been against an expansion in gas extraction.
“We are opposed to all new gas extraction because one thing leads to another – the footprint of properties is the same whether it was conventional or non-conventional extraction,” Ms Paxton said.
She said people coming into the sessions had made it clear that Beach Energy did not have a “social licence” to drill new wells.
Ms Paxton said the leaflets with names were given directly to Beach Energy.
Fellow alliance member Tony Beck yesterday described Beach Energy’s sessions as “pathetic”.
He said the people representing Beach Energy had a “distinct” lack of knowledge of the whole gas industry.
“It was absolutely pathetic. They were only technicians in really small areas – they couldn’t answer the really big questions, it just went straight over their heads,” Mr Beck claimed.
He said they were particularly in the dark over the Australia’s emissions targets and the broader plans by Beach Energy.
“I learned nothing from them, apart from the fact they weren’t very well rounded. They were very narrow in their perspective,” Mr Beck said.
