Despite the grotesque levels of taxpayer funded spin, Northern Territory fracking remains commercially unproven beyond the pilot stage, with massive government subsidies likely needed to progress projects further.
Water is life in the NT, but if frackers get their way, thousands of wells will be drilled through our underground reservoirs, which supply 90% of the Territory’s water needs.
Tamboran and Beetaloo Energy remain at small pilot production stages (Tamboran only a planned 40 terajoules a day, and Beetaloo Energy up to a planned 25 terajoules a day), contracted to the NT government under deals that were signed without going out to competitive tender.
The Territory uses about 60TJ a day of gas at peak levels, so there is little local market for commercial scale fracking, especially if the Albanese Government delivers its planned 20% national gas reservation scheme.
Financial analysis by ACIL Allen undertaken as part of the Scientific Inquiry into Hydraulic Fracturing forecast that even in a best-case scenario, annual royalties from full-scale fracking production would only average $69 million per year, less than 1% of the NT’s total annual revenue.
In a desperate move to create a market for expensive fracked gas, the CLP Government wants to make the NT the ‘data centre capital of the globe’ and has given Beetaloo Digital access to 185 hectares of land at Berry Springs for a 2GW data centre.
Environment Centre NT Acting Co-CEO Bree Ahrens said:
“The CLP and Texan frackers are patting themselves on the back about ‘first gas’ – but the Beetaloo is still not commercially viable, which is why they have released this absurd plan to make the Top End the data centre capital of the globe.
“Territorians don’t believe the hype and want to defend our water and lifestyle from the frackers and AI data centres.
“The inflated job numbers in the NT government media release are based on tricky accounting, taking the number of annual jobs created and then multiplying them over 25 years.
“The reality is in any year, at most, a few hundred people will be employed because of fracking.
“Despite the spin about keeping the lights on, the reality is that fracking is propped up by huge amounts of our money, secret deals behind closed doors, and inflated job figures.”
BACKGROUND
The Australia Institute have reviewed ACIL Allen’s modelling, finding that even at full scale production, employment would peak at 1650 during the construction phase, with just 550 jobs at full scale production.
Since the fracking moratorium was lifted in 2018, successive NT governments have spent approximately $485 million in taxpayer subsidies on the gas industry. Earlier this year, ECNT identified a further $2b in subsidies and liabilities hidden in the 2025-6 NT Budget. Once subsidies and liabilities are combined, the NT Government is unlikely to ever recover its expenditure on gas industry subsidies and other support, even if the industry does eventually reach full scale production.
Limited royalties are projected to flow from pilot fracking projects in late 2026, however, forward estimates demonstrate that combined mining and petroleum royalties are in fact forecast to decrease by $7 million by the end of this decade.
Recent analysis from Springmount Advisory also found:
- Beetaloo Gas is 2.5 times more expensive than Queensland gas
- Gas from the Beetaloo would take at least five years to reach the east coast market
- AEMO has found that the cost of producing gas from the Beetaloo is 176% higher than existing Queensland sources.
Fracking the Beetaloo will detonate a climate bomb, generating more than a billion tonnes of climate pollution and increasing Australia’s emissions by up to 20 per cent.
