Abstract
This week’s decision by Norwegian company Equinor to abandon a A$200 million plan to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight surprised both its critics and backers.
Equinor says it abandoned the project off the remote South Australian coast because it was not “commercially competitive”.
But the plan was flawed from its inception. It was out of step with the investment community’s reduced appetite for frontier fossil fuel exploration, and growing concern about financial exposure to carbon risk. A broad section of the community opposed it on environmental grounds, including the potential for a possibly catastrophic oil spill.
Equinor says it abandoned the project off the remote South Australian coast because it was not “commercially competitive”.
But the plan was flawed from its inception. It was out of step with the investment community’s reduced appetite for frontier fossil fuel exploration, and growing concern about financial exposure to carbon risk. A broad section of the community opposed it on environmental grounds, including the potential for a possibly catastrophic oil spill.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Specialist publication | The Conversation |
| Publisher | The Conversation UK |
| Publication status | Published - 27 Feb 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Dr Madeline Taylor receives funding from The Sydney Environment Institute and is a member of The Ross Parsons Centre, Australian Centre for Climate and Environmental Law and Sydney Environment Institute.Tina Soliman Hunter received funding from UK AHRC
Keywords
- Oil
- Marine ecosystems
- Offshore oil drilling
- Equinor
