Santos’ $3.6 billion Narrabri gas development will go ahead after a tribunal ruled the project’s importance to the nation’s energy reliability outweighed potential environmental and cultural heritage concerns.
The ruling by the Native Title Tribunal ends Santos’ decade-long fight to drill up to 850 wells and extract coal-seam gas in north-western New South Wales, which is also an important agricultural area for the state.
The 127-page ruling by the tribunal found that despite noting the project’s “serious” detrimental effect on climate change, it would have a “net public benefit” as long as all the gas produced was supplied to the increasingly constrained domestic market.
Source: https://www.afr.com/companies/energy/tribunal-clears-path-for-santos-3-6-billion-narrabri-gas-project-20250520-p5m0sp