Future gas supply area project (withdrawn)

The following information was provided in support of the EIS process under the Environmental Protection Act 1994 for the voluntary preparation of an EIS (VEIS) for the Future Gas Supply Area Project, prior to the application being withdrawn by the proponent on 20 November 2012.

The Future Gas Supply Area project (as proposed by the proponent in its Initial Advice Statement) would have involved the production of coal seam gas (CSG) from gas fields over an approximate area of 4400 square kilometres (440,000 hectares) in central and southern Queensland. The project would have been sited across all or part of petroleum leases (PL) 10, 11 and 176 and authorities to prospect (ATP) 631, 655, 665, 708, 745, 803, 804 and 868. The tenements are located across the Maranoa, Western Downs, Banana and Central Highlands regional council local government areas and adjacent to the population centres of Roma, Taroom, Wandoan, Injune and Rolleston.

The number, size and specific location of each component of the project had not been determined, and would have been influenced by the location, size and quality of the discovered CSG resource within the project area. The maximum number of CSG production wells was estimated to be 4100, with approximately 1400 operational at any one time. These numbers would have been confirmed through the EIS process.

Typical activities associated with the project would have included drilling and the completion of CSG production wells and monitoring wells; installation of facilities including gas treatment, gas compression, water storage, water treatment plants, power supply and generation infrastructure; associated gas and water gathering and transmission systems and support infrastructure such as roads, accommodation camps, communications and maintenance facilities.

The construction workforce was proposed to be accommodated both in purpose-built camps to be located close to work sites and within local housing in regional townships such as Roma, Wallumbilla, Wandoan, Taroom, Injune and Rolleston.

The CSG produced by the project was proposed to be transmitted through a high-pressure pipeline to the Santos Gladstone Liquefied Natural Gas (GLNG) export facility at Curtis Island, near Gladstone, from which liquefied natural gas would have been exported by ship to international markets.

Anticipated environmental impacts of the project included:

• loss of vegetation of state significance, including regional ecosystems, essential habitat and high value regrowth vegetation
• dewatering of local groundwater aquifers
• impacts to wetlands of international importance (Ramsar wetlands), listed threatened species and ecological communities and listed migratory species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999
• impacts on agricultural land, including impacts to strategic cropping land.

The project was related to but separate from other GLNG project developments in the Bowen Basin that have already been assessed and approved.

Queensland assessment process

Environmental Protection Act 1994

On 18 January 2012, an application was made by the proponent under section 71 of the Environmental Protection Act 1994 (EP Act) for the preparation of a voluntary EIS. The application was approved on 20 January 2012. In accordance with section 41 of the EP Act, Santos Limited prepared and submitted a draft TOR for carrying out an EIS for the proposal to the department's chief executive. The draft TOR for the EIS were made available for public review and comment from Monday 25 June 2012 until Friday 3 August 2012. All comments on the draft TOR were forwarded to the proponent and their response to the comments had been provided to the department.

At the time the voluntary EIS application was withdrawn the TOR were being finalised by the department based on the consideration of all comments received.