Woodside Petroleum is Australia’s largest producer of liquefied natural gas.Credit:Bloomberg
The expansion is a crucial component of Woodside’s long-held ambition to develop the $16 billion Scarborough gas field off the coast of WA – a project that is facing mounting opposition from activists over the vast quantities of planet-heating greenhouse gases it is expected to generate.
Market Forces campaigner Jack Bertolus said the Pluto-Scarborough gas project was out of step with last year’s landmark warning by the International Energy Agency that the world must not develop any new oil and gas fields if it is to achieve the Paris Agreement’s target of limiting global temperature rises to 1.5 degrees.
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“Yet,despite a clear commitment to net zero,NAB has just led a global banking consortium to enable a 1.6 billion-tonne carbon bomb,with ANZ and Westpac as part of the deal,” Mr Bertolus said.
Supporters of liquefied natural gas (LNG) describe it as a necessary “transition fuel” in the green power shift,as a lower-emission alternative to coal that can keep energy reliable and affordable in periods when weather conditions for wind and solar are unfavourable.
Industry leaders point out Australian LNG exports have the potential to slash emissions in importing countries by about 170 million tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent each year – nearly a third of Australia’s emissions – by providing an alternative to higher-emitting fuel such as coal.
However,LNG’s future is increasingly under scrutiny,with scientists,climate advocates and the United Nations arguing gas remains a heavy source of emissions and its role must be urgently reduced,not expanded,to avert catastrophic levels of global warming.