WA’s peak environmental body has accused WA’s gas industry of gross negligence after gas giant Santos pleaded guilty over its role in an oil spill off WA's Pilbara coast in 2022, which WA regulators say caused 25,000 litres of oil to be spilled into the Indian Ocean, killing marine life.
On Monday in Karratha Magistrates Court, Santos were fined $10,000 for the catastrophic spill that documents tabled in federal Parliament showed killed several dolphins and caused horrific impacts for other vulnerable sea life including sea snakes.
The dolphins were found within 200m of the slick only hours after Santos started pumping oil through a ruptured pipeline.
A year after the spill, an anonymous whistleblower accused Santos of a coverup in a statement tabled in the Federal Parliament, stating that Santos staff also observed sea snakes writhing in agony in addition to the multiple dolphin deaths.
Anna Chapman, Fossil Fuels Program Manager at the Conservation Council of WA, says:
“Santos are guilty of gross negligence and catastrophic environmental vandalism with fatal consequences.
“The WA government has admitted that the deadly spill caused more than 25,000 litres of oil to be spilled into the ocean off the Pilbara coast, despite failing to report this until exposed by media reporting weeks after the incident occurred.
“The catastrophic damage caused by the oil and gas industry in WA was revealed by images of dead dolphins and eye-witness accounts of sea snakes writhing in agony after the spill, exposed in Parliament.
“This ruling reminds every Australian of the completely unacceptable impacts of offshore oil and gas expansion for WA, and highlights the risk of catastrophic oil spill posed by projects like Woodside’s Browse Gas proposal for the precious and fragile Scott Reef, teeming with endangered sea life.
“This was the second catastrophic oil spill in WA’s ocean in the past 15 years - we can’t risk a third at Scott Reef, where Woodside’s Browse Gas proposal threatens the endangered whales, turtles, sea snakes and other marine life that rely on it for survival.
“This is yet another example of the oil and gas industry getting away with trashing WA’s nature for the lowest possible price.
“At less than 40 cents per litre of oil spilled, the fine issued to Santos yesterday is completely inadequate given the scale of the fatal environmental vandalism they caused.
“In WA, multinational gas companies pay less for pumping oil into the ocean than average West Australians pay to put petrol in their cars.
“Far from negligible, this oil spill was gross negligence from the gas industry with catastrophic and deadly impacts for WA’s precious and threatened marine life.”