A hearing over Santos's net zero emissions claims has started in the Federal Court, after a national advocacy organisation accused the oil and gas company of greenwashing.
A hearing over Santos's net zero emissions claims has started in the Federal Court, after a national advocacy organisation accused the oil and gas company of greenwashing.
The Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility (ACCR) alleged Santos engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct over its net zero emissions claims.
ACCR, backed by the Environmental Defenders Office, sued the oil and gas company in the Federal Court of Australia in 2021.
At a hearing before Federal Court judge Brigitte Markovic today, ACCR was represented by barrister Noel Hutley, who was also the lawyer for Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting in an iron ore royalties trial in the Supreme Court of Western Australia, and for Mineral Resources boss Chris Ellison in the dispute with former employee Steven Pigozzo.
"All of the major issues in this trial surrounds the question whether Santos has reasonable grounds in announcing the [net zero] target together with its accompanying details," Mr Hutley told the court.
"It was little more than a series of speculations … cobbled together in a matter of weeks and attended by no proper process or modelling at all, or modelling that is inadequate, and at some cases insufficient, with the assumptions that Santos made."
The court was told Santos advised the market through a statement in 2020 that it had a clear pathway to net zero emissions by 2040.
Santos anticipated the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to come from future carbon capture and storage processes, known as blue hydrogen, ACCR alleged.
But ACCR alleged Santos failed to disclose it had firm plans to increase its greenhouse gas emisssions through oil and gas growth and exploration opportunities after 2025.
It is further alleged Santos failed to disclose that blue hydrogen production would increase its scope one and two greenhouse gas emissions.
ACCR alleged Santos represented itself as a producer of clean energy and that blue hydrogen was clean and would have zero emissions.
In court, Mr Hutley said Santos made the announcements without any proper basis.
"Soon afterwards, Santos learnt that it could not produce blue hydrogen without significant emissions," he said.
In the 2020 announcement, Santos chief executive Kevin Gallagher said the game-changer in reducing the company's emissions was the Moomba CCS project, which would permanently store 1.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year.
Mr Hutley also told the court Mr Gallagher's statement to the market about CCS being handleable was misleading.
He also questioned the method of calculation in numbers referenced in Santos's statement to the market.
"No-one has put forward a shred pf paper to show any other bases or … any other witness competent to put forward such calculations and defend it," Mr Hutley said in court.
"Our submission is, it’s simply indefensible."
The hearing is scheduled to continue in the Federal Court until November 15.
