Indigenous Australians Derail Controversial Barossa Gas Project by Suing South Korean ECA

(VICE, Brooklyn, 6 April 2022) The South Korean government has shelved plans to pour $700 million into a massive $4.7 billion gas project in Australia’s Timor Sea far north offshore after Tiwi Island Indigenous leaders from the region took them to court, according to government meeting notes seen by VICE. The Export-Import Bank of Korea pulled the handbrake on part of a mammoth $US700 million investment into the controversial Barossa gas project in Australia’s Northern Territory last month. “Not only is the Barossa gas project more polluting than other existing gas fields, but it also faces business uncertainty with its incomplete carbon capture and storage scheme, and plummeting long-term liquified natural gas demand,” said Hye-Young, South Korean National Assembly representative. ABC Australia reports that South Korea's K-SURE and Japan's JBIC have approved their financing, so the project's financing hinges on KEXIM. Larrakia and Tiwi Islander traditional owners, along with an international coalition of anti-gas groups, are targeting plans for a $4.7 billion Barossa gas development, to be built and operated by Santos, in waters about 300 kilometres north of Darwin. Conversation Canada has noted that this Tiwi Islands offshore gas fight shows public banks are under real pressure over fossil fuel funding. They note that Public financial institutions are under renewed pressure to change lending practices after the world’s leading climate scientists strongly warned against any new fossil fuel infrastructure. In our region, public banks in China, Japan, and South Korea now face unprecedented scrutiny for their role in financing the climate crisis. While export credit agencies are not the only funders of oil, gas and coal infrastructure, and not the largest either, they have been instrumental in developing many of the world’s most carbon intensive sectors. How? By locking in fossil fuel energy systems, leveraging private finance by reducing risk premiums, and shaping international standards which influence private bank policies. In short, they have played a key role in enabling fossil fuel expansion. For decades, these state supported agencies have gone under the radar. No longer. Scrutiny is increasing of their work borrowing from national treasuries or public capital markets to finance export-oriented fossil fuel projects.