As a result of a significant victory in the Federal Court for a Tiwi Islander, drilling at a sizable gas project northwest of Darwin will be stopped.
The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority should not have permitted drilling near the Tiwi Islands, according to Federal Court Justice Mordecai Bromberg.
Dennis Tipakalippa, a Tiwi Islander, filed a lawsuit in June, claiming that the regulator had no right to let Santos to dig eight wells in the Barossa gas field, 265 kilometres northwest of Darwin.
The Munupi elder said that he was left out of the company’s environmental planning process and expressed concern that the project may harm his people’s sea-country.
Following stakeholder dialogue, Santos, the second-largest independent gas producer in Australia, said that it had obtained all required clearances.
However, Justice Bromberg ruled on Wednesday afternoon that the regulator should not have been legally confident that the project’s drilling plan fulfilled the requirements.
The regulator’s permission was overturned by the federal court judge, and the drilling ban is now in effect until October 6.
Prior to the decision on Wednesday, Santos decided to cease the majority of its activities last month.
The business promised not to drill any further wells in the Barossa gas field and to halt all drilling operations before reaching the gas reservoir.
Justice Bromberg heard testimony from various witnesses in speech, music, and dance during the week-long hearing that took place last month in the courtroom on Melville Island.
The court was informed of the Munupi people’s ties to the land and the water and their concerns that the Santos project would harm the environment, have an adverse effect on their way of life, and negatively affect their spiritual well-being.
Traditional owners from the Tiwi Islands, according to Santos, would not need to be engaged since they were not significant stakeholders in the Barossa project.
First production is anticipated in 2025 from the $US3.6 billion ($A5.2b) offshore natural gas development, which is also anticipated to provide up to 600 jobs and 280 km of gas pipeline to the Darwin LNG plant.
The project, which the business says it bought from ConocoPhillips in 2020, is 43% finished and on pace.
The court case’s drilling project was scheduled to be finished in 2025 and began in July.