Australia's New South Wales Suspends AGL's License to Operate Waukivory CSG Pilot
Australia’s AGL will not be permitted to commence operations at its Gloucester coal seam gas site until New South Wales Environment Protection Authority (EPA) is satisfied that the operations can be conducted in a manner that does not pose a risk to the environment, EPA said in a statement Wednesday.
EPA Chief Environmental Regulator Mark Gifford said the EPA is undertaking a full investigation into AGL Gloucester’s operations and served AGL with a notice Wednesday demanding records prior to any further work commencing at the site.
“Officers from the EPA are at AGL’s Gloucester operations today undertaking inspections and water sampling, after AGL informed the authority yesterday that it had detected BTEX chemicals at its Waukivory operations,” Gifford said.
AGL suspended pilot production testing at its Waukivory coal seam gas pilot project Tuesday. The decision was made in response to the detection of Benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX) in samples of flowback water taken from two of the four wells and from an aboveground water storage tank, the company said Tuesday.
Gifford reiterated that AGL informed the EPA that it was aware of elevated levels of BTEX chemicals on 15 January, but it did not make these results known to the EPA or the public until yesterday.
“The EPA is concerned at AGL’s lack of timeliness and transparency in informing us of these results. The EPA is reviewing AGL’s Environment Protection Licence to include new conditions requiring immediate reporting of these types of results when they are detected. All companies are required to immediately report any significant environmental harm or threat of harm to the EPA,” he said.
BTEX is a group of chemicals known as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene. These chemicals can occur naturally in coal seams. The government banned the use of BTEX chemicals in hydraulic fracturing.
The Division of Resources and Energy is also conducting an investigation and has issued AGL Gloucester with a direction to suspend operations.