With debt set to surge past A$6 billion ($4.2 billion) next year, quadrupling from just two years ago – and estimated to hit A$35 billion in a decade – lawmakers are desperate to find ways to fill the gap.
The Beetaloo Basin – a resource-rich area hundreds of kilometers south of Port Darwin – is believed to hold three quarters of the Territory’s shale gas resources.
The industry’s speculative forecasts suggest the Territory may have up to 500 trillion cubic feet (14 trillion cubic meters) of gas reserves – more than the proven reserves in the US – with the potential to bring in vast royalties.
“Estimates have predicted that hundreds of millions of dollars could be spent on civil works and gas exploration in the Territory this year,” the state’s Natural Resources Minister Paul Kirby told AFP.
A moratorium on fracking in the region was put in place in 2016 over public opposition to the practice and to allow an independent commission of inquiry to be established.
But last month the center-left government lifted the embargo, with Environment Minister Eva Lawler saying it understood the importance of protecting the environment and will eventually implement all 135 fracking recommendations made by the inquiry last year, though she offered no firm time frame.
