Chris Dobney
The CEO of gas explorer Metgasco, Peter Henderson, has been accused of spin over claims that the company’s seismic testing program around Casino Aerodrome is looking for ‘conventional gas’, not coal-seam gas.
Boudicca Cerese of Kyogle Group Against Gas (GAG) said, ‘the latest claim by Metgasco that they are currently testing for conventional gas reserves is another example of how they use spin and misinformation to attempt to win public acceptance for their damaging industry.
‘Publicly available documents clearly state that much of Metgasco’s so-called “conventional” gas reserves in the region are in fact “tight” gas – that is gas which is held in relatively impermeable or nonporous rock reservoirs.’
Ms Cerese says the methods for extracting tight gas are at least as dangerous as those for extracting coal-seam gas.
‘Unlike conventional gas, tight-gas reservoirs typically require large numbers of wells and large and often multiple fracking treatments in order to achieve an economically adequate production rate.
‘So obviously the impacts of a tight-gas production field are going to be much greater than for a conventional field – with a larger land surface area affected and all the issues associated with fracking, such as chemical contamination of ground and surface waters, intensive water usage and increased risk of earthquakes.’
CSG Free Northern Rivers has announced a further protest against Metgasco’s attempts to establish gas production in the northern rivers at the company’s Casino headquarters this morning.
Interested people are encouraged to gather at 10am outside the Metgasco offices in Johnston Street, Casino.
