Coal seam gas Tamworth: Santos negotiating to reactivate 'zombie' gas licences covering North West region

The news was revealed by Department of Regional NSW Deputy Secretary Georgina Beattie in an estimates hearing last week.

Government has 13 applications for petroleum exploration licences (PELs) "under assessment", she revealed.

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"So at the moment we are, as the Deputy Premier suggested, in discussions with the titleholder about the extent of those future licences. At the moment they are actively under assessment," she said.

Asked if all of them were under the control of Santos, Ms Beattie clarified that the South Australian gas company may not in fact be the formal licence holder - but "controls all the titles".

Often known as 'zombie PELs', the 12 licences cover an enormous region stretching from the Upper Hunter to the Queensland border.

Many of the licenses have reached their expiration date. Green groups and many local farmers have argued they should have been extinguished long ago, as have Nationals Cabinet Ministers Adam Marshall and Kevin Anderson, both of whom have licences in their electorates.

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Mr Anderson told the Leader he wants all the licences in the Tamworth electorate canned.

"That's why they call them Zombie PELs, because these freaks just keep popping up. My view is that we need to play whack-a-mole and whack them back down and get them out of Tamworth," Mr Anderson said.

Just because government is assessing the licences does not mean they will be approved, he said.

"That's their right. Santos have these applications and it's the proper process for them to have those discussions in relation to an application, it could be an application for anything. If that turns to approval, or not, then that's part of that process," he said.

"But in my view there's enough gas up around Narrabri, stay up there, stay out of Tamworth."

Deputy Premier John Barilaro told the same estimates hearing the Narrabri Gas Project will supply just 60 per cent of the state's gas needs for the next two decades.

The state will soon release the Future of Gas Statement, which will map which areas are acceptable for future gas exploitation and which area are no-go zones for gas.

"Of course we are going to look at need, of course we are going to look at where the resource is, but the reality is it is very possible there are areas that may be under exploration that are not going to be appropriate from an environmental perspective or an economic perspective," he said.

If the zombie licences are resurrected, that would contradict earlier commitments by Santos CEO, Kevin Gallagher.

"The Narrabri Gas Project is contained. Our plans are simply not to drill in the Liverpool Plains," he said in 2018.

Santos was contacted for comment on this story. The company last year won approval from the state government for their $3.6 billion Narrabri Gas Project.

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