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The Northern Territory Government and Origin Energy have been accused of misleading a hydraulic fracturing inquiry and providing it with false information regarding a failed well, but the inquiry's chair has supported Origin in its rejection of the claim.
As the Scientific Inquiry into Hydraulic Fracturing in the NT holds its final round of community consultations on its draft final report — which will determine whether or not an NT Government moratorium on fracking is lifted — before it is finalised next month, the incident highlights the tensions over the controversial practice.
Lock The Gate spokeswoman Naomi Hogan gave evidence to the inquiry on Tuesday, and said that over the weekend she had found a disparity between Origin Energy's submissions to the NT Government and to the inquiry.
"This is supposed to be a warts-and-all account of the industry so that communities can make up their minds about whether or not it's safe to proceed," Ms Hogan told the panel.
"We've seen a major cover-up of a [well] deformation that's happening right now, a site that you've visited and had no idea what's going on underground.
"The only people who do are Origin and the NT Government and they've said nothing, and in fact have provided you with false and misleading information by taking out the well deformation."
'Whole report compromised': Lock The Gate
The problem related to a type of well casing that Origin Energy which had been damaged while drilling on Amungee Mungee Station near Daly Waters, Ms Hogan said.
During hydraulic fracturing, a mixture of chemicals, water and sand are injected at high pressure into rock to release gas.
Labor won the August 2016 election and brought in a moratorium the following month, just days after Origin was given final approval to test frack at Amungee Mungee, where 57 days of flaring led to protests from pastoralists and anti-fracking activists.
Ms Hogan told the inquiry Origin's submission to the NT Government in February 2017 included the diagram of a damaged well casing (known as a casing deformation).
She said that was omitted from the submission made to the inquiry two months later, which provided a picture of the well without a photo of the deformation and with no information regarding the fact that the drilling of the final six stages of the well were unable to proceed.
"If it wasn't that important or controversial why did they feel the need to delete it from the version they gave to you?" Ms Hogan said.
"And if the NT Government knew about this casing deformation, why didn't they tell you and why were they complicit in sending you — with the NT logo — a picture of the well without the casing deformation?"
She said the information was not provided to the inquiry until much later than it was provided to the NT Government, and that it appeared to have been overlooked by the panel.
"To me, this says that the whole draft final report and the integrity of that document is in question and potentially needs to be redone," Ms Hogan said.
"The chapter on well integrity needs to be looked at, and there needs to be some course of work with the department to figure out who in the department knew about this, who signed off on these geological survey documents with the well casing deformation? Did the Minister know about this?"
Origin's reputation 'unnecessarily challenged'
Inquiry chair Dr Rachel Pepper returned after the afternoon break with a timeline clarifying when the submissions were received, and said that in May and June 2017, Origin made revised submissions to the inquiry that included the diagram of the deformation and noted the fault.
But she said the inquiry's interim report, published in July, featured the original diagram, which was then reproduced in the draft final report in December.
Origin Energy spokesman Dr David Close rejected the accusations of a cover-up.
"There is no well integrity issue at Amungee NW-1H [well], let alone well failure," he told the inquiry on Tuesday afternoon.
He said the casing in the horizontal section of the well was intentionally perforated to allow gas and fluids from rocks to flow back to the surface.
"Any changes in that section of the well bore are not fundamental to the well integrity," he said, and did not pose a safety, containment, or fluid migration risk.
"At no point was there an attempt to mislead the inquiry, the public, or any of our other stakeholders, we're very horrified at that prospect," Dr Close said.
He said the situation did not need to be adversarial, had Lock The Gate asked for more information through the panel, rather than "firing allegations at Origin".
"We're certainly disappointed that Origin's reputation had been unnecessarily, in our view, challenged on this issue," Dr Close said.
He said Origin had spoken openly about the deformation on several occasions and that the details were publicly available.
"In hindsight we could have corrected the record after the report came out to say, 'There are multiple versions of this'," he said.
"Any indication we've tried to obscure something feels somewhat contrived."
He also said that five of the final six stages of the drilling were completed at another nearby section, and the twelfth stage did not work and a fracture was unable to be created.
"It does appear this is an attempt to compromise the entire inquiry process over a common event that is not of significance with regard to well integrity, environmental protection or safety," he said.
The inquiry found in Origin's favour.
"The explanation you have provided is more than satisfactory, I don't accept for one moment that there's been any attempt to misrepresent or mislead this inquiry," Justice Pepper said.
The Department of Primary Industry and Resources said in a statement that it did not mislead the inquiry.
"The department was notified of the casing deformation in daily completion reports on 2/3 September 2016 following hydraulic fracturing stage number seven, and in the discovery evaluation report and well completion report which were shared with the inquiry panel by the company and by the department," it said.
"The department has fully cooperated with the inquiry."
Topics: oil-and-gas, business-economics-and-finance, industry, mining-rural, nt, darwin-0800
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