Many people thought a battle had been won when the Great Barrier Reef
Marine Park (GBRMP) was declared in 1975 and oil drilling was
prohibited in the Park. But oil exploration in the Coral Sea and Great
Barrier Reef never ended. Oil industry interest in the region is high;
the political winds in Australia are pushing for development of a new
offshore oil field adjacent to one of the world’s most valued natural
places.
Such an oil field would be one of the biggest in Australia. Visitors to
the Reef - millions a year - would be greeted by oil rigs and tankers;
spills could destroy both the communities and ecosystems of the
Queensland coast.
The GBRMP is the world’s largest World Heritage area and the world’s
largest marine park. The GBRMP was formed directly in response to
threats from the oil industry. At 340,000 sq km, it is almost the size
of England. It contains over 2,900 individual reefs, 54 percent of the
world’s mangroves, and is home to the world’s most important surviving
dugong populations.
In May 2000, Geoscience Australia (GA) - the Australian federal
government agency responsible for promoting offshore oil exploration in
Australian waters - received a proposal from Shell and Woodside
petroleum companies. The proposal requested GA’s participation in a
consortium that would map areas for potential release under the
Petroleum (Submerged Lands) Act 1967, the process by which areas are
opened up to commercial oil exploration and exploitation.
Included are the Townsville Trough, Queensland Trough and Plateau, and
the Capricorn Basin. These areas make up the eastern border for much of
the GBRMP.
This secret project to have vast areas of the Coral Sea adjacent to the
GBRMP mapped for oil exploration purposes is not new. The stakes,
however, are getting higher and the political push is getting stronger.
The petroleum prospects in the Townsville Trough and other basins
adjacent to the GBRMP are believed to be approximately 5 billion
barrels. This would make the region Australia’s richest offshore oil
area.
Such drilling would seriously threaten the ecological and economic viability of the GBRMP.
Current law prohibits oil drilling inside the GBRMP. Few believe that
the GBRMP is under direct and immediate threat of oil drilling, though
there is evidence of petroleum prospecting within the park.
The greater and more immediate threat is to the known reserves in the
Coral Sea directly adjacent to the Marine Park. Selling an oil industry
adjacent to the GBRMP is not as difficult.
The danger of drilling in waters adjacent to the GBRMP has been
highlighted in the last two years by shipping accidents. The inner
channel of the GBRMP, which runs between the outer reef area and the
coastline, is a major shipping route. In the last seven years, there
have been 10 major groundings inside the GBRMP, almost all a result of
pilot error. While no spills occurred, in one case explosives had to be
used to destroy coral to free the ship.
The risks to the GBRMP associated with a massive increase in shipping -
particularly of oil - are clear. But those risks don’t seem to concern
the Australian Maritime Safety Association (AMSA). In 2000, AMSA
reviewed shipping in the GBRMP in response to a major grounding by a
cargo ship on a reef near Cairns. The report expressed concerns about
limiting the use of the inner passage because “banning of petroleum
industry ships could affect exploration and development of resources in
the region outside the GBRMP and could negatively affect the economic
viability of potential petroleum production in the Coral Sea.”
Australian environmentalists are upset that the Australian government,
already a Kyoto renegade, would consider promoting such a major
greenhouse industry adjacent to a marine park already suffering
considerable degradation from rises in sea surface temperature.
History of oil and the reef
The history of oil exploration in the Barrier Reef area makes clear the
deep involvement of government in a secret plan to open an area running
virtually the entire length of the eastern border of the GBRMP. This
history extends over 35 years.
In 1967, 80, 920 square miles of the as-yet-undeclared GBRMP had been
leased by the Queensland government for oil and mineral exploration.
Two exploratory wells were drilled, and dozens of oil companies were
interested in the Coral Sea, including Shell, BP and Ampol. An
announced test drilling in 1969 was a catalyst for Commonwealth
intervention, the eventual cancellation of all leases and the
establishment of the GBRMP in 1975. From 1969- 1975, extensive seismic
work was conducted inside the eventual borders of the GBRMP by the Deep
Sea Drilling Program (predecessor to the Ocean Drilling Project) and
Shell. Seismic work is essential to oil exploration. The Commonwealth
government still refuses to release the results of those surveys.
After the GBRMP was created in 1975, exploration ceased for several years.
While the GBRMP Act does prohibit drilling for oil inside the park, it
does not prevent exploration, scientific expeditions, seismic testing
or drilling for core samples. Seismic work in the area resumed in 1979.
Geophysical Service International (GSI), an Australian division of
Texas Instruments, sought and received permission to conduct seismic
surveys over 15,000 kilometres (9,000 miles) in the Queensland Plateau,
based on interest from oil companies including Esso Australia, Santos,
Phillips Petroleum, BP and AGIP. Documents refer to GSI’s work as a
“scientific survey.”
The results, which included last minute surveys inside the GBRMP,
encouraged the oil companies. The Bureau of Mineral Resources (BMR)—later to become the Australian Geological Survey Organisation (AGSO)
and then Geosciences Australia (GA)—noted that the “Queensland
Plateau and Queensland and Townsville Troughs appear to have some
prospects for petroleum and it would be desirable to include these
areas within the adjacent area to which the Petroleum (Submerged Lands)
Act applies.”
In 1984, petroleum exploration in the Coral Sea began to move almost
exclusively into government hands. Commercial exploration interests
found it increasingly difficult to engage in research outside of the
public eye, but government activity was easily disguised as scientific
work, which has fewer assessment and agency requirements.
The Queensland Plateau was the first site in BMR’s scope. An
exploratory cruise was planned for 1985 under the agency’s fossil fuel
program. BMR described the project as a “scientific study,” noting
shortly afterwards in the text of the same document that the research
“will prove valuable for exploration.” Part of the proposed research—both seismic surveys and core sampling—would take place inside
GBRMP. The survey was to last three months.
In December 1984 the chief of BMR’s Division of Marine Geoscience and
Petroleum Geology wrote to Graham Kelleher, the chair of the Great
Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, regarding BMR’s survey plans inside
the GBRMP. The letter claimed that the portions of the study that took
place within the GBRMP would be purely scientific. Nonetheless, the
project description was filled with references to the petroleum
prospects of the region, particularly in the Townsville Trough and the
Queensland Plateau. The study was designed to assess five areas
adjacent to and sometimes overlapping with the GBRMP. For each area,
assessment of petroleum and exploration opportunities was a stated
objective.
In February 1985, Kelleher replied to BMR, “It is essential that
geological coring of this nature with scientific objectives be
justified and presented in a manner which will demonstrate that it is
not related to hydrocarbon exploration.”
At the end of the 1985 cruise, BMR provided maps of the region to
Bridge Oil. The agency’s public report on the cruise omitted any
mention of petroleum exploration.
After that, commercial impetus for survey work in the region was
increasingly hidden. All subsequent trips to the area were described as
scientific. At no time were the underlying motives for the work
questioned.
In 1987 another BMR cruise took place inside GBRMP, and in the Marion
Plateau and Townsville Trough areas along the park boundary. The formal
description of the cruise yet again made no direct mention of petroleum
or hydrocarbons; however, under the “Consultation” section of the BMR
proposal, a handwritten entry read, “interest in work in area expressed
by Elf Aquitane and Crusader Oil.”
1990 was a significant year in the oil exploration of the GBRMP and
Coral Sea. A 1990 Ocean Drilling Project (ODP) cruise - Leg 133 -
drilled for core samples inside the GBRMP, with some holes as deep as
720 metres. The ODP is an international marine research program funded
by governments, academic institutions, and industry. While there is
little public documentation of the Leg 133 trip itself, a 1996 review
of Australia’s participation in the ODP made it clear Leg 133 was
particularly important to the oil industry:
“Of most importance to Australia, is [sic] the results of Leg 133,
drilling on and adjacent to the Great Barrier Reef… The results are
highly significant for both AGSO and the petroleum exploration
industry.”
In 1990, Australia’s Federal Resources Minister Alan Griffiths issued a
comprehensive program for release of offshore areas for exploration by
oil companies in areas immediately adjacent to the eastern border of
the GBRMP. Public outcry forced Prime Minister Bob Hawke two days later
to reassure Australians that no exploration would be permitted that
would endanger the GBRMP.
According to testimony given to Australia’s Senate this year, a
decision was made in 1989 not to assess the petroleum potential of
areas along the northeast margin of the park. “We completed a
geological study but we made no reference to petroleum potential in
light of the fact that there was no intention of releasing those
areas,” said Dr. Trevor Powell, chief of GA’s Petroleum and Marine
Division.
Despite the claim, the drive by GA to have these areas released is
apparent throughout the study. The decision by GA not to mention
petroleum didn’t mean the work undertaken wasn’t an assessment of
potential petroleum reserves, nor did it prevent others from making
their own conclusions regarding the potential of the area.
In the Department of Primary Industries and Energy’s 1990 “Offshore
Strategy,” the Queensland Trough and the Capricorn Basin were slated
for commercial release within a 6-10 year period. That release hasn’t
happened only because the Government and GA have been unable to keep
the lid on their plans, and Australians continue to demonstrate that
they are unwilling for the areas to become oil fields.
NOPEC’s blunder
In 2000, another significant push by oil interests began. In addition
to the activities of GA and Shell/ Woodside, there were efforts by oil
exploration companies, such as Infoterra and Seismic Australia, to seek
work on the northeast margin of GBRMP.
In August 2002, a seismic exploration project by Houston-based
TGS-NOPEC was put on hold, after a groundswell of criticism from
environmental groups. The project would have involved seismic testing
along thousands of miles of ocean floor, with seismic blasts happening
more frequently than once a minute for 50 consecutive days, 24 hours a
day. Outrage followed based on seismic testing’s devastating effect on
marine life, and open public discussion ensued on TGS-NOPEC’s goal of
oil extraction. The project received far more public scrutiny than the
work of GA, despite the fact that GA is pushing for actual exploration
and exploitation in the eastern margins. TGS-NOPEC ignored the rule
that exploration in the Coral Sea must hide behind science. It has paid
the price.
TGS-NOPEC also received far more scrutiny that the Ocean Drilling Project (ODP). In February 2001, the Joides Resolution,
the 143-metre drilling platform flagship for the Ocean Drilling
Program, arrived in Townsville, prepared for its latest drilling
research. Leg 194 of the ODP ostensibly studied the history of climate
change inside and adjacent to the park. The GBRMPA gave them a permit
to drill 24 deep core holes inside the Park. The permit was issued on
the basis that the research was “pure science.” There has been no
impact assessment and no opportunity for public comment. Representative
of the oil industry and the oil drilling industry took part in the
cruise.
In 2002, in response to the accumulating evidence, the Australian
Democrats introduced The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park (Boundary
Extension) Amendment Bill 2002. The bill would effectively prohibit oil
drilling eastward of the current boundaries of the GBRMP, to the limits
of Australia’s Exclusive Economic Zone.
The bill is now before the Senate, where it appears to have the support
of the Labor Party, Australia’s largest opposition party. It lacks
support from the conservatives in power, however. In early debate on
the bill, the Government declared it “an act of economic vandalism,” a
clear admission of industry and government desires to open up an area
previously declared off-limits to full exploitation.
Should the bill not pass, to the broader policy failures of this
Government - the failure to develop renewable energy sources or
alternative technologies - we may soon have to add failure to protect
the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
- Jeremy Tager is environment advisor to the Australian Democrats. Views expressed in this article are his own.
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