Project operator attempts to walk away from environmental offsets

The approval for the Inpex-operated Ichthys
 LNG project was given provided Inpex
undertook about $91m of
environmental projects to offset its impact.

An attempt by the operator of a $34bn gas project to walk away from environmental offset obligations because it claims its impact was not as big as expected is “radically premature”, a legal group has claimed.

The Inpex-operated Ichthys LNG project to extract gas from off the coast of Western Australia, pipe it to a processing plant near Darwin, and then export it – primarily to Japan – received environmental approval in 2011 from the federal Labor government.

The approval, granted until 2061, was given provided Inpex undertook about $91m of work to offset its impact on the Top End region.

However, ABC has reported Inpex sought to vary conditions of its environmental obligations under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, and abandon $30m worth of offset projects.

Read The Guardian story - “Natural gas project operator attempts to walk away from environmental offsets.”