Two Protesters Arrested for Boarding Offshore Gas Platform off Australia
Australian authorities have arrested two Greenpeace activists who briefly boarded an offshore gas platform off the coast of Western Australia.
On Saturday morning, a group of Greenpeace activists sailed out to the Scarborough gas floating production unit (FPU), about 125 nautical miles off the coast of Exmouth, Western Australia. They climbed aboard without authorization and suspended banners from the FPU's hull, signaling their opposition and forcing operator Woodside to temporarily suspend pre-commissioning operations on the platform.
The activists brought hanging tents with them so that they could stay for an extended period, and two members of the group remained aboard overnight Saturday and into Sunday.
On Monday, the Australian Border Force announced the conclusion of an operation for the "safe removal" of the two remaining activists. According to the ABF, the Western Australia Police and the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA), the two men were removed without injury and relocated to Western Australia for detention.
The two men, aged 48 and 52, have been charged with "interfering with offshore petroleum installations or operations." If convicted, they could spend up to 10 years in prison, the ABF said.
"Offshore petroleum facilities operate in inherently complex and potentially hazardous environments. Unauthorised access is unlawful and can place both trespassers and workers at significant risk," said ABF in a statement.
The Scarborough FPU was built by McDermott and CSSC for the purpose of processing gas at the Browse formation, the largest remaining resource in Australia yet to be tapped. The gas will be piped to the Pluto LNG facility in the Pilbara region; the plant will be expanded with an additional liquefaction train to increase capacity, bringing its output to a total of abbout eight million tonnes per annum.
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Greenpeace objects to Woodside's plans to drill as many as 57 wells - many of them near or under Scott Reef, a shoal that provides habitat for a variety of species, including pygmy blue whales and sea turtles. The group says that the disruption caused by oil and gas development - seismic surveys, increased vessel activity, light pollution - would be harmful to the marine environment, in addition to the long term effects of removing and combusting the formation's gas contents.
Woodside notes that Scarborough's gas composition is unusually low in reservoir CO2, and its processing facilities will be comparatively energy-efficient, resulting in some of the lowest-carbon LNG available for the Asian market. It says that the project's activities will not make contact with the reef above the 75-meter contour line.
