Update: Australian authorities arrested Greenpeace’s Scarborough activists in an Australian Border Force-led operation on 18 October. Woodside Energy declined to comment on the arrests or outline a Scarborough restart timeline.
Woodside Energy has halted pre-commissioning work at its Scarborough offshore gas project, near Western Australia (WA), because four Greenpeace activists attached themselves to a floating production unit (FPU) early on 17 October.
“The workforce on board the [Scarborough] FPU has been mustered and accounted for,” a Woodside spokesperson told Lithos on 18 October.
“The activists’ conduct … is dangerous, reckless and illegal … [They have] endangered the surrounding environment, in addition to people and the facility itself,” the spokesperson said.
Woodside supports a strong law enforcement response to Greenpeace’s demonstration, they added. The company is working with authorities to handle the protest.
The Australian Border Force (ABF) is aware of reports about Greenpeace’s Scarborough protest and is working with Federal and WA agencies to respond, an ABF spokesperson told Lithos.
Woodside expects to liquefy eight million tonnes of natural gas annually at Scarborough from October-December 2026. The company produced liquefied natural gas at the offshore project in July, but has not formally opened it.
Greenpeace activists boarded Woodside’s Scarborough FPU to oppose the company’s plan to extract oil and gas at Scott Reef – an ecologically dense area that supports endangered whales and turtles – the environmental group said on 17 October.
“Woodside’s reckless Browse gas proposal would turn the magnificent Scott Reef into an industrial gas zone. [The company] wants to drill up to 57 toxic wells around [the area],” Greenpeace Chief Executive David Ritter told reporters.
Scott Reef is located hundreds of kilometres from Scarborough.
Greenpeace’s Scarborough protest comes just months after Woodside scrapped its long-term downstream climate targets, which cover emissions generated from third-party gas burning.
“[Woodside’s downstream emissions targets] were established in a different market context and based on a different expected pace of the energy transition,” Woodside Chief Executive Liz Westcott told investors on 25 August.
“The reality is that markets for emerging lower-carbon opportunities … have developed more slowly than anticipated,” Westcott said. “[Woodside’s] targets no longer align with evolving technology, current policy settings and customer demand,” she added.
By Avinash Govind