Black Mountain's conclusion that its drilling will not affect water resources is without foundation, and threatened species and National Heritage are at risk, according to the Federal environment department.
A company with less than $5 million in the bank and a boss who lives in the US will soon get a red or green light from WA's environment watchdog.
The Belisama project inland from Dongara could supply up to 20 per cent of WA's demand from 2029.
After numerous safety incidents a McDermott heavy lift vessel left without completing work at Woodside's Stybarrow field.
Just 50km from Exmouth, oil production equipment attached to a tangled mess of pipelines remains on the seabed after an offshore construction vessel with a string of safety incidents returned to Singapore.
Woodside engaged the advanced offshore construction vessel DLV 2000 owned by US firm McDermott to clean up the non-producing Stybarrow oil field it inherited when it bought BHP's petroleum division in 2022.
However, the decommissioning work was plagued by at least three serious safety incidents involving lifting equipment, and now the biggest lift - of a disconnectable turret mooring (DTM) weighing more than 700 tonnes - will have to wait for another expensive mobilisation of a heavy lift construction vessel to Australia's north west.
The early April departure of the DLV 2000 pushes the completion of Stybarrow decommissioning past the March 2025 deadline set by offshore safety and environment regulator NOPSEMA in 2021.
BHP produced oil at Stybarrow from 2007 to 2015, then removed the floating production vessel, flushed the pipelines, shut in and capped the wells. The next year, the DTM that had connected the production vessel to pipelines on the seabed unexpectedly sank to the seabed 825m below, with the pipelines still attached.
A NOPSEMA spokeswoman said the agency was aware that the removal of some equipment, including the DTM, had been delayed and was monitoring Woodside's progress to ensure its removal.
A Woodside spokeswoman said it had made substantial progress at Stybarrow, including making 10 disused oil wells safe, and would continue the work detailed in plans accepted by NOPSEMA.
"Across all activities, our priority remains the safety of people and the environment," she said.
Peter Milne
The work on Stybarrow is part of a surge in offshore decommissioning in Australia that started in 2021 when the regulator NOPSEMA started issuing legally enforceable directions rather than just waiting for companies to do the right thing.
When Woodside completed its purchase of BHP's petroleum division in 2022, it inherited equity in four assets with decommissioning directives: Stybarrow and Griffin in WA; and Minerva and ExxonMobil's operations in the Bass Strait.
In recent years, Woodside has successfully performed two major lifts to decommission oil fields off the WA coast.
The Griffin riser turret mooring, made of 14500 tonnes of steel, was raised in December 2024 and is now being deconstructed in WA in preparation for recycling.
The Griffin riser turret morring was lifet ti the surface in
In 2023 Woodside removed the 2500-tonne Nganhurra Riser Turret Mooring that, like Stybarrow, had sunk to the seabed off the Pilbara coast.
The biggest decommissioning expences for Woodside will be its 50 per cent share of the cost of ExxonMobil plugging 180 wells and dismantling ten platforms in the Bass Strait by 2027.
In February, Woodside spooked some investors when it revealed it may spend up to $US1 billion ($1.6 billion) this year on decommissioning, double what some analysts were expecting.
Woodside and other exporters have a "shocking record" of not providing evidence that gas helps reduce carbon emissions, according to Chris Tallentire.
After a big splash four years ago and little publicity since, Woodside has teamed up with Japanese partners to promote a smaller, later, and dirtier hydrogen plant.
Woodside's Pluto project is delivering a tiny sliver of gas to WA compared to other exporters, but the Domgas Alliance wants to change that.
NOPSEMA has ordered Jadestone to urgently address corrosion on its aged Montara Venture oil vessel in the Timor Sea, which "may pose significant safety and environmental risks."
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