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Posted: 2023-07-01 22:45:39

Traditional owners and green groups in the Northern Territory say a new law is allowing companies exploring for gas to start selling it before they have gone through the approval processes needed for full production is putting the community at risk.

When the laws were introduced to the NT parliament in October last year, the government said its intention was to allow appraisal-phase gas to power local communities rather than being released or burned at the point of extraction.

The government is hoping the territory is on the cusp of starting a major new shale gas fracking industry in the remote Beetaloo and McArthur Basins.

In May this year the government greenlit fracking in the territory — five years after a moratorium was lifted.

At the time, it said it had implemented all 135 recommendations of the Pepper fracking inquiry, though key recommendations — including how to offset all life-cycle greenhouse emissions in Australia — have not yet been completed, according to the NT's fracking regulator.

The NT government, led by Chief Minister Natasha Fyles, lifted a fracking moratorium in May.()

NT Environment Centre director Kirsty Howey said allowing the sale of exploratory gas before the recommendations were fully completed appeared to weaken the government's commitment.

"We'd been promised by the Northern Territory government that the industry would not move to production until numerous safeguards were in place," she said.

"That includes things like offsetting all life cycle emissions produced in Australia from fracking and declaring water allocation plans in the regions to be affected."

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