A NEW map outlining South Australia's potential for unconventional gas exploration was released by the State Government yesterday.
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It outlined locations for potential gas mining in the Lower, Mid, Upper and Far North regions, South East, Eyre and Yorke peninsulas, West Coast and Adelaide Hills.
Projects include coal seam gas, shale gas and tight gas, all of which rely on hydraulic fracturing – called 'fracking' – to extract it, and underground coal gasification.
A Department for Manufacturing, Innovation, Trade, Resources and Energy spokesman said the Roadmap for Unconventional Gas Projects in South Australia had been formed to "maximise the value of SA's uncoventional gas resources in an environmentally-sustainable way".
"The outcomes will be operations that reduce risks as low as practical while also meeting community expectations for net outcomes," he said.
Fracking involves pumping large volumes of water and chemicals into the earth at high pressure to force open, or fracture, rock cracks, allowing gas to escape to the surface.
The extraction technique was banned in France and has created environmental issues in Queensland and the United States after freshwater aquifers became polluted.
Sheep and cattle farmer Moss Gibb owns land near Orroroo on the Walloway Basin and is concerned about his groundwater.
Linc Energy completed a major drilling program last year on a site 6 kilometres north of Orroroo, where more than 800 million tonnes of lignite was confirmed.
The coal is licensed to be extracted by either underground coal gasification, which involves burning coal underground to convert it into gas for extraction, or open cut/underground mining.
Mr Gibb relies on the basin for stock and domestic water but he does not believe UCG is as safe as mining companies claim.
"There's a lot of things they don't tell you, but if you delve into it, you find out," he said.
He was mostly concerned about the drilling of bore holes through aquifers to get to the coal.
"It doesn't matter what sort of material you put down there to line your bores with, whether it be concrete or steel," Mr Gibb said.
"At some stage it's going to naturally deteriorate – it could be 50, 70 or 100 years – but the consequences are going to be devastating when it does.
"And what about seismic activity? We could get an earthquake through there that's going to crack it up tomorrow and the next thing you know, we've got poisoned water."
*Full report in Stock Journal, December 13 issue, 2012.
