Norwegian company Equinor have formally released their draft environmental plan for deep water oil drilling in the Great Australian Bight. Equinor want to drill later this year. The proposed Stromlo well is 327km out in the Southern Ocean, open to everything the Roaring Forties has got. It is in 2500m of water, and they’ll then need to drill through 3000m of seabed. As part of their environment plan Equinor were forced to supply oil spill modelling, which showed oil on beaches between Margaret River in the west and Port Macquarie in the east. Wildlife, marine ecologies, local industries and communities would all be devastated. It would be a catastrophe on every level. Equinor claim the drilling “can be done safely.” BP – who Equinor acquired their Bight leases from – made the same claim about the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico.
The Gold Coast community that loves the ocean gathered at Burleigh Heads and did a paddle out to show we are not happy about the invasion and exploitation in Australian waters, that we are protesting and raising our voices to have our say as an Australian community that cares about our ocean and its conservation.
Equinor’s environment plan has been submitted and were more than 30.000 petitions from the community saying NO to drilling. We are waiting to hear NOPSEMA's decision.