Farmers pledge to contine blockade Farmers launch blockade.
Senior energy analyst Gundi Royle has broken ranks with her colleagues, attacking industry and regulators for failing to conduct independent regional modelling of the groundwater impacts of up to $80 billion in planned coal seam gas (CSG) development, mostly in Queensland.
Royle, an experienced energy industry executive now with US investment bank Moelis & Company, has told the Herald the coal seam gas industry is "racing ahead to establish a fait accompli, and governments have been negligent in not joining up the dots. Once the capital is sunk it will be impossible to stop the industry rolling over the country."
Up to 40,000 coal seam gas wells are to be drilled across Queensland in coming decades as companies including Santos, Origin Energy, BG Group and Shell develop four massive liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects, based in Gladstone.
The first three projects, valued at more than $50 billion, have gained all necessary environmental approvals and the proponents have reached a final investment decision to go ahead with development, but the approvals are subject to review under the Queensland government's ''adaptive'' regulatory process. Shell's Arrow LNG project has yet to lodge an environmental application and is targeting a final investment decision in 2013.
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The Queanbeyan Age
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