Australia’s biggest gas infrastructure company is being asked to explain how plans to pipe gas from a new onshore field do not blow climate commitments.

APA Group’s involvement in developing the Beetaloo Basin poses significant financial and climate risks to the company, according to a challenge filed on behalf of 128 shareholders.

Shareholder organisation Market Forces said the investors were concerned APA Group was relying on carbon offsets to justify building pipelines to connect onshore gas wells with interstate and export terminals.

The gas utility agreed in 2023 to work on connecting Empire Energy’s acreage in the Beetaloo Basin through to APA’s Amadeus Gas Pipeline, which supplies Darwin, Alice Springs and regional centres in the NT.

Longer-term arrangements may see APA and Empire Energy work together to connect the Beetaloo Basin to the east coast gas market.

Conservation groups warn that extraction relies on fracking, a high-risk technology that could contaminate the primary water source for the region and its agriculture.

Fracking the Beetaloo Basin and processing at Middle Arm near Darwin would produce up to 49 million tonnes of emissions per year, adding 11 per cent to Australia’s annual emissions, according to analysis cited by Market Forces.

Including consumption of the gas, emissions were estimated to total 2.3 billion tonnes over 25 years, Market Forces said.

Superannuation fund UniSuper is the largest shareholder, holding more than nine per cent of the company’s shares, followed by State Street Global Advisors and American investment giant BlackRock. 

“A growing number of UniSuper members and leading academics are calling on their fund to vote in favour of this resolution holding APA Group to account on its climate commitments,” campaigner Rachel Deans said.

To be voted on at APA’s annual general meeting on October 24, it is the first climate resolution to be filed against an Australian gas utility.

But APA argues that Australia’s East Coast and remote grid energy systems need new supplies of domestic gas to get off coal and diesel.

The pipeline company transports gas along the East Coast and plans to play an even bigger role by bringing future gas from the north to users in the southern states.

This post was originally published on Michael West.