INPEX has spilled oil into Darwin Harbour, exposed offshore workers to dangerous mercury, and been prosecuted for under-reporting toxic emissions by more than 100-fold, all in the past 12 months.
A letter from the US miner raised hope that the jarrah forest inland from Perth would escape its strip mining for bauxite, but Alcoa is keeping its options open.
Rhett Bennett is the Texas-based chair, CEO, and major owner of Black Mountain Energy, which plans to develop gas fields in the Kimberley using fracking. He is also ceo of Black Mountain Oil and Gas, which operates in the USA.
Investors beware: after spending more than $40 million in the Canning Basin, the US-owned company's continued pursuit of remote gas appears to be throwing good money after bad.
The green light for Black Mountain Energy comes just months after Federal experts said its environmental risk assessment was "limited and disjointed" and reached "largely unsupported" conclusions.
