Sabra Lane: A major Australian gas export plant has released huge amounts of climate polluting methane in a leak which has been kept secret from the public for almost 20 years. Gas giant Santos has been cleared to use the damaged plant in Darwin for a controversial new project in what environmentalists say is a national scandal. Josh Robertson has this exclusive report.
Josh Robertson: On a clear day you can see it from Darwin's city centre. It's a huge tank that's held vast amounts of liquefied natural gas and a dirty secret.
Kirsty Howey: What we have here is a cover up at every conceivable scale.
Josh Robertson: The ABC can reveal the Darwin LNG plant has leaked methane from its inception in 2006. The public was never told about the issue which is revealed in documents obtained by the ABC and the Environment Centre Northern Territory. The centre's executive director is Kirsty Howey.
Kirsty Howey: This is a huge leak of methane that will have significant impacts on the climate and puts the people of Darwin and Palmerston at risk.
Josh Robertson: The documents reveal it started with a design fault in the storage tank. This led to supercooled LNG overflowing and causing cracks in a vapour barrier, allowing methane to escape into the atmosphere. Operators knew about the leak for eight months before reporting it to the Antique Government in 2020, just hours after getting approval for plans to extend the plant's life.
Kirsty Howey: It's hard not to be suspicious, to put it mildly. The timing is very, very curious.
Josh Robertson: NT officials were initially concerned about the risk of an explosion. The documents revealed they thought the public should be informed. But the operator, ConocoPhillips, disagreed, saying it didn't believe there were any affected persons outside of DLNG personnel.
Kirsty Howey: I would have expected the regulators to demand that there be public disclosure of this risk and this leak. And it's deeply shocking and disappointing that they did not require this.
Josh Robertson: The NT Environment Protection Authority, or EPA, now says the leak isn't big enough to pose an immediate threat. And Santos says the tank is safe to use for its new Barossa gas project and it has all relevant approvals. But it won't be paying to fix the leak or measure the estimated carbon pollution, which would be the equivalent of putting 7,000 new cars on the road every year until 2050. That's just nowhere near good enough, given the importance of methane emissions. Rod Sims is chair of Pro Renewables Think Tank, the superpower institute. Mr Sims says under federal law, companies like Santos are allowed to report emissions using estimates based on standard formulas.
Rod Sims: The government regulations are the problem that are allowing companies to take a bit of latitude. So let's fix that.
Josh Robertson: With the plant's environmental licence up for renewal this month, Kirsty Howey says there's something the territory government can do.
Kirsty Howey: Santos should be forced to fix the leak, fix the problem before that renewal is given.
Josh Robertson: The NT EPA says that's a commercial decision for the company.
Sabra Lane: Josh Robertson reporting.