ANTI-GAS activists rallied outside of Penola’s Beach Energy office yesterday afternoon ahead of a planned visit by Energy and Mining Minister Dan van Holst Pellekaan.
Around 10 Limestone Coast Protection Alliance members took to Church Street to protest against new mining activity in the Limestone Coast and the State Government’s financial contribution to existing projects.
Mr van Holst Pellekaan started his tour at Infigen’s Lake Bonney Wind Farm and Battery before meeting with Limestone Coast council officials.
He also toured Beach Energy’s $22m redevelopment of the part-Federally funded Katnook gas-processing plant, which when operational is expected to push down power prices.
But Limestone Coast Protection Alliance member Merilyn Paxton said the recent carbon dioxide discovery at Lakes Oil and Vintage Energy’s joint Nangwarry-1 well demonstrated “wasteful” government expenditure.
“Nangwarry-1 has turned out to be a mine full of carbon dioxide, which has no use to anyone other than a soft drink company,” she said.
“Government has already wasted $31m in the South East on mining without very much production coming from it.
“This is taxpayers money and we do not think they should be wasting taxpayers money like this.”
Mr van Holst Pellekaan said discussion with the protesters was fruitful in regards to renewable energy and acknowledged the differences in opinion on conventional gas extraction.
“Those who wished to speak with me were supportive of the majority of our energy policies,” Mr van Holst Pellekaan said.
“My impression was they were supportive of most of what we are doing in regards to renewable energy, but we have a different view as to whether we need to have more gas or not.
“They expressed the view that we should not be letting anymore gas coming out of the ground and we accepted we have different views on that.
Last week, Lakes Oil and Vintage Energy confirmed a 65 metre gross column in the Pretty Hill sandstone formation, with analysis indicating high levels of CO2 in the samples.
Lakes Oil spokesperson Tim O’Brien conceded although the company was searching for methane gas, carbon dioxide was still a usable source.
“There is a tight market on the east coast and it is tight with suppliers, but it is still early stages of what we can do with it,” he said.
“The resources are there and we can develop it and it will be produced into the market.
“We will analyse the results of the well and then come back to flow test the well and determine what we will do in the future,” he said.
“During the process we did not have any issues while drilling the well including environmental issues.”
The project received $5m of government funding to assist in the running costs of the program with Mr van Holst Pellekaan labeling the find as a “positive outcome”.
The company said the findings are similar to the Caroline-1 exploration well, which produced more than 810,000 tonnes of liquid carbon dioxide from 1968 to 2017.
Liquid C02 has many industrial and commercial uses including in the soft drink industry, firefighting, medical and other industry markets.
