Gas giant Santos has been granted permission to resume laying an underwater pipeline for its $5.7 billion Barossa gas project in the Timor Sea, north of Darwin, after winning a legal battle against a group of Tiwi Islands elders. Santos has won a federal court challenge lodged by a group of Tiwi Islands elders over its Barossa project.
The elders had wanted Santos to revise its environment management plan to include potential risks to underwater sacred sites on the project after the group of First Nations elders, represented by the Environmental Defenders Office, applied to the court for an urgent injunction. They argued that Santos had failed to adequately assess whether its 263-kilometre pipeline would damage underwater cultural heritage sites and sacred dreaming places along the pipeline's route, which runs about seven kilometres west of the Tiwi Islands. Today's ruling means the gas company can resume construction of its pipeline, which will be used to pipe gas to Darwin before being shipped as LNG to buyers in South Korea and Japan