News has surfaced that the Santos' Narrabri Gas Project at Leewood in the Pilliga Forest may be further delayed with the company advising investors that it won't be making a final investment decision (FID) until at least 2025.

However the project’s opponents have greeted the news with cautious optimism.

From its inception, the project has battled determined community opposition from multiple quarters, rigorous questioning and challenges over its environmental and economic credentials, and mounting pressure from ever-changing government policy as Australia zigzags towards Net Zero Emissions and away from fossil fuels.

The Santos announcement came one day after the Federal Government determined that the Hunter Gas Pipeline, considered critical to whether the Pilliga project can proceed, could be assessed under revised environmental laws.

It also followed news that the NSW Government had axed their support for a ‘special activation precinct’ in Narrabri which would have strengthened Santos’ project by creating local demand for the gas.

Just last week the Upper House of NSW Parliament passed Climate Change laws that will make the state’s net zero target a legally binding duty, ensure the framework includes an emissions reduction target of 70% by 2035 and provides a mechanism to ramp up the targets.

“Empowering the Net Zero Commission to provide fearless and independent advice about coal and gas projects is a critical plank in ending fossil fuel reliance in NSW and something that should provide confidence to decision makers when refusing to open new projects,” said NSW Greens MP and spokesperson for climate change Sue Higginson.

Gomeroi women Aunty Polly Cutmore and Miah Wright in Canberra back in 2020

The Lock the Gate Alliance, which continues to back community campaigns against the Narrabri Gas Project and the Hunter Valley Pipeline, says that the Santos announcement proves that "the Narrabri gas project does not stack up."

Spokesperson Margaret Fleck says that the obstacles to actually developing the Narrabri Gas Project continue to accumulate.

"In 2023 there are so many issues," she said. "A decision on the Gomeroi Native Title claim in the Federal Court was due in October but has not been handed down.

"Santos needs the Gomeroi to lose in the Federal Court and not apply to the High Court; and they need two pipeline licences - one for the Hunter Gas Pipeline (HGP) and one for the ten kilometre lateral pipeline that would connect the gas field at Leewood to the HGP at Baan Baa.

"They have to overcome these things to have all the components in place for the project to go ahead," Mrs Fleck said.

She says that although Santos representatives "clearly think it is going to go ahead" there are many people who believe that the changing market forces will overtake the project and it will "wither on the vine".

"According to the 2014 Memorandum of Understanding there was supposed to be gas flowing from the Pilliga by 2017," Mrs Fleck said. "But even if they make a FID in 2025 the gas cannot flow until at least 2027, ten years after it could have."

Local farmer and member of the Great Artesian Basin Protection Group, Jeremy Borowski, has also cautiously welcomed the Santos announcement.

“It’s a nail in the coffin of the Narrabri Gas Project but it’s not buried yet,” he told the Coonamble Times.

“We’ve seen long delays to this project but we can’t be lulled into a false sense of security.

“Every cent the price of oil rises makes gas more economic, they’re still working on it and there could come a price point where they start pushing again.”

Santos gas drilling site in the Pilliga. IMAGE: Max Phillips

Mr Borowski says that there is a clear message for communities opposing the Narrabri Gas Project.

“It buys us time to win over the politicians and more time to observe the downsides of CSG in other regions.

“It just buys us time to make sure we don’t make similar mistakes here,” he said.

“The fight is definitely not over.”