Experts claim Woodside downplays oil spill danger in $30 billion Browse gas plan

A group of experts, commercial fishers and environmental NGOs have launched a fresh challenge to Woodside’s $30 billion Browse gas scheme, accusing the firm of dramatically understating the likelihood of an oil spill off the pristine Kimberley coastline. While Woodside argues the development will generate enough gas for 800,000 households and has moved a drill centre away from turtle nesting sites, its latest spill modelling presents a “most credible” scenario of a 5,600-barrel condensate release over 12 hours at Scott Reef.

Critics highlight an alternative simulation that predicts a blowout could discharge nearly 900,000 barrels across 77 days, a volume thirty times larger than the 2009 Montara incident. The company’s mitigation plan relies on novel pyrotechnic shear rams and standard capping stacks and relief wells, but specialists such as Rick Steiner and Tina Soliman-Hunter warn that these measures may fail or cannot be mobilised quickly enough.

Chevron Australia has also dismissed the shear-ram technology as untestable. The Western Australian EPA is reviewing the proposal, and the federal environment minister is slated to receive final advice before the end of the year.