Tiwi people have expressed anger at a Santos announcement that the company plans to commence laying one of the pipelines for its Barossa offshore gas project, which they say threatens burial grounds and sacred sites.
In its quarterly report, the fossil fuel company said it had notified Australia’s offshore petroleum regulator Nopsema that it had complied with a direction issued earlier this year to survey for underwater cultural heritage sites.
Tiwi community members said they had not been contacted by Santos about its plans to push ahead with laying the pipeline and first heard of it via the September quarter update, published on Thursday.
Santos disputes this claim, with a spokesperson saying the company had advised stakeholders, including Tiwi people, of the upcoming work since 4 October.
“Everyone expresses anger about a disaster like Juukan Gorge after it happens, but Tiwi people are saying right now that destruction is about to happen if we don’t do everything in our power to stop it,” Tiwi campaigner and human rights advocate Antonia Burke said.
“It is blatantly obvious that our voice is being ignored when it comes to fossil fuel projects in this country. Santos’s Barossa project is threatening our environment and our cultural way of life.”
The Barossa project would involve drilling for gas in the Timor Sea and piping it more than 200km to Darwin for processing. Santos has approval to build a pipeline that would transport the gas from the gas field to Darwin. That approval was paused following the direction issued by Nopsema.
Santos wrote in its quarterly report that, after research and interviews, an independent expert had concluded “there were no specific underwater cultural heritage places along the planned Barossa pipeline route that may be affected by the activities covered by the pipeline environmental plan”.
Tiwi people questioned this claim and pointed to a section of the expert report that noted a total of 163 features of “palaeogeographic interest and archaeological potential” in the study area.
They also said community members had provided “countless testimonies attesting that this site is of critical spiritual significance to Tiwi people”.
“Our connection to sea country is way too strong, and it has been since the creation of time for us,” Munupi senior cultural leader and elder Pirrawayingi Puruntatameri said.
“The water may have risen and moved over time, but it has never interrupted our spiritual connection to the land that is now underwater.”
Santos’s spokesperson said the company’s independent report had concluded that “based on the current level of understanding of the submerged palaeolandscape within the offshore study area, we do not recommend the establishment of any archaeological exclusion zones at this time”.
The spokesperson added that an independent anthropologist hired by the company had interviewed about 170 Tiwi people and concluded there were “no specific underwater cultural heritage places along the pipeline route to which people, ‘in accordance with Indigenous tradition, may have spiritual and cultural connections that may be affected by the future activities covered by the environment plan’.”
A Nopsema spokesperson confirmed Santos had notified the regulator it had complied with the direction.
The spokesperson said the regulator conducted monitoring of compliance with general directions it issued. However, they said neither the legislation Nopsema operated under, nor the direction issued to Santos, required the regulator to indicate it was satisfied Santos had complied with the order.
Other environmental approvals for the project are outstanding. Santos’s environmental plan to commence drilling work is still being assessed by Nopsema. An approval for drilling work was overturned last year after a federal court challenge established that the company had failed to consult Tiwi people about the proposed drilling.
In its quarterly report, Santos said the project “remains on target to commence production in the first half 2025 and within current cost guidance” assuming that the drilling work recommenced this year.
The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR) cast doubt on this statement.
“Investors will be questioning Santos on how it can lose a year in the drilling schedule and still be on track,” ACCR executive Brynn O’Brien said.
