Shareholders at the Metgasco annual general meeting in North Sydney yesterday voted to reject the remuneration report, a sign that shareholders are unhappy with the board.
A second rejection next year would see the entire board forced to stand for re-election.
The mood of the meeting was one of ‘frustration boiling over’, according to Lock The Gate Northern Rivers spokesperson Ian Gaillard.
Mr Gaillard, who attended the meeting with a group of other gasfield-free activists, said Metgasco CEO Peter Henderson ‘is still understating the company’s problems’.
‘It’s time Mr Henderson disclosed to the investment community about the 85 per cent who voted against gasfields in Lismore in 2012 and the latest university research that shows 65 per cent of the Richmond Valley, where Metgasco’s field operations are based, are also opposed to his proposals,’ Mr Gaillard said.
A former Metgasco employee, who was defeated in her bid to be elected to the board, was equally scathing but for different reasons.
Glenda McLoughlin, the company’s former CFO, said the shareholders are sending a message that they would like to see better performance out of the board.
‘They’d like to see the board get on and develop the company’s resources for the benefit of the northern rivers community and local gas customers. There are tremendous benefits to be gained from the development of these clean energy resources,’ she told ABC radio’s Rural Report this morning.
The meeting was told that the company intends to return to the northern rivers and drill its Rosella-1 well near Casino in in the first half of 2014.
Metgasco said it is expecting the environmental approval for it from the state government within the next month.
But Mr Gaillard says, ‘[Mr Henderson] may call the proposed Rosella-1 mine “conventional” but the community knows it’s an industrial gasfield by any other name’.
Mr Henderson described the AGM as ‘a very interesting meeting with some strong views expressed’.
‘Nick Heath and Greg Short were returned as directors of the company and the three challenging directors were not.
‘There was a very clear message from the entire group that they believe the value the gas can add to the northern rivers region and a determination to see some benefits come from the project,’ he told ABC.
A request from Echonetdaily for comments from the company had not been responded to at time of writing.
No matter how these industry shills spin it,CSG is toxic & unwanted in the Northern Rivers and will be chased out like the last time these fools attempted their stupidity here. Be told mR Henderson NO MEANS NO!!
Glenda McLoughlin: “They’d like to see the board get on and develop the company’s resources for the benefit of the northern rivers community and local gas customers.”
What rubbish. The shareholders are interested in the benefit of one thing only, return on their investment. They don’t care at all about our environment or the people whose lives their greed would affect.
May they all lose their entire investment in destruction.
Coal Seam Gas is not clean. Methane is between 72% and 105% more powerful a greenhouse gas than Carbon Dioxide. The water is filthy, not just salt, but uranium, cadmium, benzene, ethel-benzene, xylene, amongst the long list of contaminants in CSG product water.
When the truth comes out coal will be seen as the transition fuel to get from gas to green energy.
This lie must be exposed, forget fraccing, look at the climate change implications of this industry.
Note, up to 13% of the methane used in gas stoves goes directly into the air unburned.
Shareholders should be held personally responsible for damages caused by companies.
It would make them think about more than their pockets and hopefully cause them to invest ethically.
Cheeky b*******… “it’s for your own good, Northern Rivers….” LoL
Yes well exactly where do these shareholders live? … I’d guess not in the Northern Rivers. I’d love to know how they’d feel about having a ‘Tara’ landscape in their backyard. Not to mention the associated environmental and health impacts. They’ll still trying to tell us that black is white! What planet are these people from?
What they said!
For Peter Henderson to say that “one thing that I took from today’s meeting is that there is a very strong belief of what Metgasco can add to the Northern Rivers” is so typical of his spin. Even given the greed-based desire by those with investment dollars at stake to see CSG push on, it would be foolish to forget, even for one moment, that the overwhelming majority of landowners/residents in this area know exactly what WE have at stake, and know equally well exactly what it is that Metgasco offers.
What is at stake for residents is something so much more urgent and valuable than the shareholders’ dirty dollars that CSG will never succeed in this region. Greed versus survival… hmmm… Distant money-hungry shareholders and corrupt politicians will not overwhelm those with a legitimate and passionate desire to see this land respected. The more spin Metgasco throws about, and the more assistance our myopic governmental ‘representatives’ throw at CSG, the deeper our heels will dig in.
Our gates are locked. CSG is not welcome.