The Lakes Oil exploration company is suing the Victorian government for $2.7 billion over its ban on the onshore exploration of unconventional gases.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The company, which has Otway Basin exploration licences that include the south-west, said the damages sought included $92 million of past expenditure and more than $2.6 billion in lost future earnings.
Lakes Oil chairman Chris Tonkin said the company was the most affected energy exploration company impacted by the state government ban.
“This (the ban) has caused extreme damage to Lakes Oil,” Mr Tonkin said.
In a media statement, the company said its writ was based upon “a fundamental legal principle that a party, having given a thing with one hand, is not to take away the means of enjoying it with the other.
“The unjust and unlawful actions of the Victorian Government, and its proposed Bill to ban onshore exploration, have caused significant losses to the company and its 11,000 long-standing shareholders,” the company said.
Mr Tonkin said the company had no plans to drill for coal seam gas that had aroused much of the opposition to the development of onshore unconventional gases.
The development of coal seam gas uses fracking that opponents claim has contaminated water tables.
“We do not believe coal seam gas is viable in Victoria,” Mr Tonkin said.
“We drill for tight gas.
“We drill very deeply, well under the water table.
“There are reports throughout the world that there is no risk (from drilling for tight gas) of contamination to the water table,” Mr Tonkin said.
The community campaign against fracking had “scared the living daylights out of a small minority of farmers” when fracking was unlikely to take place, he said.
“The industry is no where near the risk that ‘Lock the Gate’ says it is,” Mr Tonkin said.
The ban on developing all unconventional gases, including tight gases, that eventuated from the campaign would deny farmers the opportunity to get an income from the drilling on their land, he said.
The ban also put the availability of future energy resources in “a parlous state” and would force explorers to focus more on offshore exploration that was more expensive than onshore exploration.
Mr Tonkin said renewable energy would not meet the energy demand and was more expensive than oil and gas.
