No negative impacts should result from opening up a new part of Australia's eastern seaboard to gas exploration, NSW MPs have been told.
Advent Energy, which holds most of the controversial exploration permit PEP-11 off Sydney and Newcastle, sought to allay fears on Monday about its proposed activities more than 20km offshore.
It's trying to convince NSW MPs to halt proposed legislation that would ban offshore gas activity in state waters and hamper any industry trying to set up in deeper, federally controlled seas.
Environmental groups have warned offshore drilling risks harming whales and other marine life, will dirty the coast and accelerate climate change.
But, while the offshore oil and gas industry is foreign to NSW, it has a long and strong track record across Australia with 3000 wells drilled in the past six years, Advent Energy told a parliamentary inquiry on Monday.
"As in other states, there is no reason offshore gas exploration and production should impact the NSW coast in any negative way," executive director David Breeze said.
The "safe and valuable" project's drilling would occur beyond the horizon as viewed from the coast and would only produce gas, not oil - making claims of potential spills "not credible," he said.
"There's simply no reason that NSW - alone amongst Australian states and territories - should ban offshore gas exploration and production."
Advent has investigated the potential of drilling in the PEP-11 zone for more than 20 years, narrowing its sights to an area 26km southeast of Newcastle.
The PEP-11 permit made national headlines after former prime minister Scott Morrison secretly made himself federal resources minister during the COVID-19 pandemic and then rejected Advent's application to extend its permit.
That veto - the only known decision Mr Morrison made while secretly minister of five departments - was later struck out by the courts.
Gas lobby Australian Energy Producers also warned against bans and moratoriums that would hurt businesses and trumpeted the value of carbon capture storage.
But a host of witnesses sounded the alarm about the environmental harm the offshore drilling would cause.
Solutions for Climate Australia director Barry Traill said he could not emphasise how catastrophic it will be for Australia if global warming continued on its path to 2C.
"Bringing in new gas and oil is completely antithetical" to limiting global temperatures to 1.5C, he said.
Surfers for Climate co-founder Belinda Baggs told of oil and tar sticking to the feet of beachgoers near California's offshore oil and gas projects.
Her colleague Josh Kirkman pointed to the high number of whales migrating off the NSW coast, more than a century after almost being hunted into extinction for blubber that could fuel oil lamps.
"Are we really going to put them at risk again for a fuel source that is itself on a trajectory towards extinction?" Mr Kirkman said.
The inquiry will report to the lower house at a later date.
