UK government targets for “sustainable aviation fuels” (SAFs) will only cut emissions from the sector to 0.8% below current levels in 2040, Carbon Brief analysis shows.
From 2025, flights taking off from the UK must use a fixed share of SAFs, which are largely made from waste products. This share will gradually rise from 2% next year to 22% in 2040.
The government says its “SAF mandate” will cut aviation emissions by 6.3m tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (MtCO2e) in 2040.
However, Carbon Brief analysis of government forecasts shows this being almost entirely wiped out by rising demand for air travel, meaning emissions would only fall by 0.8% overall.
The SAF mandate is the most substantial policy to date under the UK government’s “jet-zero” strategy for decarbonising air travel, which eschewed efforts to limit demand. The mandate relies heavily on fuels made from used cooking oil and other waste products, which are in limited supply.
No change
The SAF mandate will require jet fuel suppliers to ensure that an increasing share of the product they supply is “sustainable”. This is meant to encourage investment in new facilities to produce SAFs.
Fuels described as SAFs include those made from waste, such as used cooking oil, household waste and offcuts from the forestry sector.
Despite their name, SAFs produce just as many emissions as fossil fuels when burned to power planes.
However, they generally – although not always – have a lower overall “lifecycle” carbon footprint than petroleum-based jet fuel. This is due to CO2 emissions absorbed from the atmosphere when growing plants for biofuels, or emissions that are avoided by diverting waste products to be used as fuels.
These emissions savings are counted towards the UK’s aviation sector as a whole.
(The government says that, for the time being, it will not support SAFs made directly from crops, which tend to have relatively high carbon footprints due to changes in land use.)
The new UK mandate starts in 2025 with a requirement that 2% of total jet fuel demand is SAF, increasing to 10% in 2030 and 22% in 2040. The government says there is currently not enough certainty in the SAF market to set targets beyond that date.
These measures will cut overall aviation emissions by 2.7MtCO2e in 2030 and 6.3MtCO2e in 2040, according to the government.
Based on government forecasts for jet fuel use, this change will be almost totally offset by a growth in flights, leaving UK aviation emissions virtually unchanged between now and 2040.
Emissions in 2025 are expected to be 36.0MtCO2e, while 15 years later they are set to be 35.7MtCO2e, according to Carbon Brief analysis. This is a drop of just 0.3MtCO2e, or 0.8%. This is illustrated in the chart below, with the SAF mandate merely preventing an increase in emissions resulting from higher jet fuel use in 2040.
These figures are derived from the government’s “central case”, cited in its underlying analysis for the SAF mandate, which sees jet fuel use increasing from 11.5m tonnes (Mt) in 2025 to 13.3Mt in 2040. This, in turn, is based on policies in the government’s “continuation of current trends” scenario, with the SAF mandate included.
The government expects far more flights to take off from the UK in the coming years, resulting in higher jet fuel use. It has resisted pressure to curb the demand for air travel, despite warnings from experts that such actions are vital for reducing aviation emissions.
In its jet-zero strategy, the government stated that it is aiming for a “high ambition” scenario, which would see aviation emissions fall faster in the coming years. However, as it stands, it has not introduced policies to drive further emissions reductions in planes.
The SAF mandate assumes that SAFs reduce lifecycle emissions from jet fuel by 70%. Certificates will be issued to fuel suppliers for each tonne of SAF produced, using this baseline emissions reduction goal as the standard.
However, Prof Bill Rutherford, an Imperial College London biochemist who contributed to two major assessments of low-carbon aviation fuels in the UK last year, tells Carbon Brief he is sceptical about lifecycle emissions analysis that shows such high emissions benefits:
“Lifecycle analysis is a very fuzzy science…You can basically get what you want out of it.”
For example, in its analysis, the government assumes that SAFs made from used cooking oil – which are expected to make up virtually the entire UK supply in the short-term – cut lifecycle emissions by roughly 95-98% compared to conventional jet fuel.
Dr Andrea Fantuzzi, another Imperial College London chemist who also worked on the low-carbon fuel assessments with Rutherford, says such figures seem “way too high”. He estimates that the savings would be closer to 70%.
Fantuzzi adds that even this does not account for the land originally used to produce the oil, and assumes that the oil would otherwise be thrown away – rather than used to power road vehicles, for example. (For more on waste oils, see: More cooking oil.)
Additionally, Rutherford points out that the use of SAFs has no impact on non-CO2 emissions from planes, which could account for up to two-thirds of their climate impact. He concludes:
“The only way you can make aviation any more sustainable is to do less of it.”
More cooking oil
The only SAFs that are currently available in the UK are fuels made from used cooking oil and other waste oils, which are collected from restaurants and factories.
However, the SAF mandate includes a limit on the amount of waste oil-based fuels within its overall targets. This is partly to “incentivise the development of new technologies” and partly due to concerns that waste oil supplies will be insufficient.
For the first two years, these fuels will be allowed to make up 100% of UK SAFs. This then falls to 71% in 2030 and 33% in 2040. Overall, waste oil-based SAFs would account for 2% of total jet fuel use in 2025 and up to 7.8% in 2040.
Despite these limits, waste oil-based SAF use is expected to rise around 15-fold from current levels within a decade. This huge increase in demand for waste cooking oil under the SAF mandate is illustrated in the figure below.
The Aviation Environment Federation said in a statement that the amount of waste oil being allowed into UK jet fuel under the UK’s SAF mandate is “much higher than we, and many others, were expecting, and appears to be the result of airline pressure”. The looser cap on these fuels was “welcomed” by industry body Airlines UK.
It raises the question of where the UK will source the required volume of waste oil to meet SAF targets.
Studies have shown that there is nowhere near enough waste cooking oil produced domestically, within the UK, to supply jet fuel demand. “We’re not about to start eating more chips, so we will have to start importing more waste oil,” Matt Finch, UK policy manager at the NGO Transport and Environment, tells Carbon Brief.
The government itself acknowledges this, saying that production of these SAFs within the UK is likely to be constrained by the availability of waste cooking oil from 2029 onwards.
It notes that their availability will therefore be “highly dependent” on how much waste oil the UK can import.
As of 2023, waste cooking oil collected in the UK only accounted for 7% of the country’s SAF production. This share has shrunk in recent years, such that imports from other countries – particularly China – have driven most of the growth in production, as the chart below shows.
There is mounting evidence that the demand for imported cooking oil in the UK and Europe is being met with virgin palm oil that has been fraudulently passed off as waste. This would cancel out the fuel’s emissions savings, due to the land clearances for oil palm plantations.
The UK’s aviation sector will have to compete not only with other countries for a limited pool of waste cooking oil, but also with other sectors.
Most of the UK’s waste cooking oil supplies are currently used to make biofuels for trucks and other road transport. Again, diverting resources from road fuel use would undermine the emissions savings from using them in SAFs.
The government acknowledges this, noting that “the SAF mandate may divert feedstocks which would have been utilised in other sectors of the economy and this may increase emissions in other sectors”. However, it says this is justified because “there are limited alternatives to decarbonise aviation by 2050”.
One of the scenarios modelled by the government assumes that SAF targets are met, but insufficient waste cooking oil means there is not enough biodiesel for road vehicles. This reduces the cumulative emissions savings between 2025-40 from 53.9MtCO2e to 43.0MtCO2e.
New fuels
The government is also supporting new types of SAF production in the UK, including fuels made from “black bin bag waste” and residues from farming or forestry.
In the newly released documents, the government says the UK will be a “leader” and a “first mover” in these technologies, spurred on by the cap on waste oil fuels and supported by the Advanced Fuel Fund.
Unlike waste oil-based fuels, the government says there will be “sufficient” materials available to meet production demand for these advanced fuels until at least 2040. From that point onwards, it says lack of materials “may become a constraining factor”.
However, a 2023 report by the Royal Society highlighted the limited availability of some waste materials to produce SAFs. It estimated that forest offcuts, for example, would be able to provide no more than 1.7% of current jet fuel demand.
Moreover, many waste sources are already recycled or burned to generate electricity and the government has targets in place to cut household waste in the coming years. “Most waste is already used for something that’s not jet fuel, so we know supplies of waste-based SAF will be limited,” Finch tells Carbon Brief.
Finally, the government’s mandate also includes another target, within the overarching SAF goal, for scaling up the production of “power-to-liquid” fuels.
These fuels can be made using green hydrogen and carbon captured from the air. Unlike most SAFs, they could cut up to 100% of CO2 emissions compared to conventional jet fuel, but they are currently less developed than other options.
The target for power-to-liquid fuels will start in 2028 at 0.2% of total jet fuel demand, reaching 0.5% in 2030 and 3.5% in 2040.
These targets are lower than the ones introduced in the EU, which is aiming for 35% of its jet fuel to be power-to-liquid by 2050. The bloc is also targeting 70% of aviation demand to be met with SAFs by 2050, whereas the UK’s targets stop at 22% by 2040.
In its “balanced net-zero pathway” for UK aviation, government advisors the Climate Change Committee (CCC) proposed that SAFs should make up 25% of jet fuel by 2050, with one-third of this made up of power-to-liquid fuels – roughly 8% of total jet fuel. The government targets are roughly in line with this trajectory.
Thinktank Green Alliance laid out three scenarios for SAF expansion in 2022, including higher ambition goals, with power-to-liquid fuels reaching 28% and 50% of total jet fuel by 2050.
However, it noted that such a rollout could be constrained by the large amounts of additional green hydrogen and renewable power required to produce these fuels.
The report stated:
“It could be argued that aviation should not be a priority use of renewables as there are other options to cut carbon in the sector, such as managing the number of flights taken.”
The post Analysis: Benefits of UK ‘sustainable aviation fuel’ will be wiped out by rising demand appeared first on Carbon Brief.
Analysis: Benefits of UK ‘sustainable aviation fuel’ will be wiped out by rising demand
Climate Change
Risk of “catastrophic” oil spill reaching Kimberley coast found in Woodside’s Scott Reef gas drilling plans
SYDNEY, Monday 24 August 2026 – New analysis of Woodside modelling released by Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley has revealed the oil and gas corporation’s plans to drill at Scott Reef could cause an oil spill up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara disaster, impacting the Kimberley coastline and reaching as far as Indonesia.
The new analysis details the “catastrophic” oil spill risk put to environmental regulators for approval by Woodside in its Browse to North West Shelf Project (Browse) plans, the worst-case scenario being a blowout directly below Scott Reef, polluting whale migratory pathways and covering isolated turtle nesting ground with oil condensate.
An FOI application (F348) revealed the federal environment department (DCCEEW) asked offshore oil and gas regulator NOPSEMA to look into the oil spill risk in 2025. NOPSEMA’s response to the application refused access to its report, and one document shows DCCEEW sought further advice this year.
Greenpeace and Environs Kimberley are calling on the Federal Government to publicly release the NOPSEMA report given the risk of an uncontrolled release of oil condensate from directly below Scott Reef.
Hannah Schuch, Senior Campaigner at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “Woodside is aware that drilling at Scott Reef risks a massive oil spill that would have severe, far-reaching consequences. It appears environmental regulators are aware too.
“The state and federal governments need to take this risk from Woodside’s drilling plans seriously, as they could end up allowing the worst oil spill in Australian history.
“The pygmy blue whales that migrate up and down the WA coast with their newborns each year could be swimming and feeding in toxic, oil-slicked water. Woodside’s proposal to drill at Scott Reef is an environmental disaster waiting to happen, and the WA and federal governments have one surefire way to prevent catastrophe — reject Browse.”
Martin Prichard, Executive Director at Environs Kimberley, said: “A catastrophic oil spill by Woodside would be disastrous not just for marine life in the area but also for the Kimberley’s $500 million tourism industry.
“The state and federal governments will see five marine parks on the Kimberley coast included in the risk area of a catastrophic Woodside oil spill.
“The Montara oil spill was disastrous for West Timor with the toxic oil destroying seaweed farmers’ livelihoods. The Kimberley dodged a bullet with Montara, we were lucky the spill didn’t head our way. Myself and a crew flew over the Montara oil spill and followed it as far as we could. It was like a scene from a disaster movie.”
After the WA Environmental Protection Authority deemed Browse “unacceptable” due, in part, to oil spill risk, Woodside submitted a mitigation plan based on technology that has never been used “in anger”, a weakness stated in an independent expert review of the plan.
Professor Richard Steiner, independent oil spill expert, said: “A large offshore spill is impossible to effectively contain or recover. Historically, only 2-6% of total spill volume is recovered and the ecological injury from the release of toxic hydrocarbons in the sea can be severe, extensive, and long-term.
“Here in Alaska, government research concludes that several marine populations injured by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, including whales, fish, and seabirds, are still not recovering today, 37 years later. We should expect similar long-term ecological impacts in Western Australia if there were to be a major oil spill. The only sure way to avoid the risk of a catastrophic marine oil spill is to not develop oil and gas projects in marine environments.”
-ENDS-
Media contact
Emma Sangalli on emma.sangalli@greenpeace.org or 0431 513 465
What if Australia’s worst offshore oil spill hasn’t happened yet?
I’m terrified by the thought.
Our new report in partnership with Environs Kimberley analyses Woodside’s own oil spill modelling and it reveals a worst-case blowout at the corporation’s proposed Browse gas project at Scott Reef could be up to 30 times larger than the Montara oil spill – one of Australia’s worst environmental disasters to date.
Woodside’s own modelling warns that oil pollution could spread across Scott Reef, the Kimberley coast and beyond, with impacts Woodside itself describes as “severe”, “potentially irreversible” and “catastrophic”.
What’s at stake?
Scott Reef really is like nowhere else on Earth.
Scott Reef is Australia’s largest freestanding oceanic reef, a pristine marine ecosystem that has thrived for around 15 million years. About 270 kilometres off the Kimberley coast, it supports more than 2,000 marine species, including endangered pygmy blue whales, nesting green sea turtles, the endangered dusky sea snake and ancient corals.
Yet Woodside wants to drill up to 57 toxic wells around and underneath it, causing decades of deafening seismic blasting, light and noise pollution, shipping traffic and, of course, the risk of a ‘catastrophic’ oil spill.
What did Woodside’s modelling find?
Before Browse can be approved, Woodside is required to assess what could happen if something goes wrong. We analysed the corporation’s own environmental assessment documents, and the findings are deeply concerning.
Woodside’s modelling shows that the most severe Browse scenario would be the worst oil spill in Australian history, releasing up to 893,739 barrels of condensate into the Timor Sea. For context, the Montara oil spill released 30,000 barrels of oil.
A blowout of this scale could see oil spread hundreds of kilometres, reaching some of Australia’s most important marine environments, extending into Indonesian and Timor-Leste waters and even washing up along parts of the Kimberley coast. Entrained oil – oil mixed throughout the water column – is predicted to travel up to 863 kilometres from the spill site.
The modelling identifies potential impacts to at least nine marine parks, eight reefs and three Indigenous Protected Areas, as well as important habitats for endangered species, including pygmy blue whales, green sea turtles, seabirds and other marine life.
These aren’t just places on a map. They are globally significant marine ecosystems that support ancient coral reefs, endangered wildlife, tourism, fisheries and coastal communities. A spill of this scale wouldn’t simply affect one reef; it has the potential to impact an entire connected marine ecosystem.
Why this matters now
The most important thing is that Browse has not yet been approved. That means there is still time to stop Browse and the serious risks outlined in Woodside’s own modelling.
The science has been done. The risks have been modelled. The decision now rests with the Australian Government.
Governments are often forced to respond after environmental disasters happen. This is one of those rare moments where they have the opportunity to act before one does.
What you can do
Together, we still have the power to stop Woodside and save Scott Reef.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
The more people who support saving Scott Reef, the harder it is for governments to approve Woodside’s drilling plans – Browse.
Together, we can ensure a reef that has existed for millions of years is known for its incredible biodiversity – not as the site of Australia’s worst oil spill.
Let’s save Scott Reef.
What if Australia’s worst offshore oil spill hasn’t happened yet?
Analysis by Greenpeace and Environs Kimberley shows that a severe oil spill at Scott Reef could be the worst in Australian history — Woodside has labeled the impact of such a spill ‘catastrophic’.
According to the fossil fuel company the impacts to Scott Reef ‘would likely be severe and potentially irreversible’. Oily pollution could reach as far as the Kimberley coast to the coasts of Indonesia and Timor Leste while endangered marine species live, breed, forage and migrate within the potential disaster zone: whales, seabirds, turtles and other marine life are all at risk.
Report Summary
Woodside’s Browse drilling plans at Scott Reef have been found to pose unacceptable risks to the Western Australian environment once before. To secure their approvals under Federal and Western Australian law, Woodside has modelled a number of possible oil spill scenarios that could result from the Browse project.
Key Findings
- The most severe Browse scenario would be the worst oil spill in Australian history – up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara oil spill disaster. According to Woodside, the environmental impact of such a spill would be ‘catastrophic’.
- Scott Reef and Sandy Islet could be covered in oily pollution. Woodside has conceded that the impacts to Scott Reef from a major spill ‘would likely be severe and potentially irreversible’.
- A blowout of this scale could see oil washing up on the Western Australian Kimberley Coast, and affect at least nine marine parks, eight reefs, three Indigenous Protected Areas, and several islands in Australian, Indonesian and Timor Leste waters.
- Endangered and vulnerable marine species live, breed, forage and migrate within the potential disaster zone: whales, seabirds, turtles and other marine life are all at risk.
- A Browse oil spill threatens important tourism, diving, surfing and fishing hotspots, with potential ‘long term impacts’ for tourism operators in the Kimberley or visiting Rowley Shoals or Scott Reef.
Scott Reef: An ancient oceanic reef system
Scott Reef, located around 270 kilometres off the Western Australian Kimberley coast, is one of Australia’s largest oceanic reef systems. Ancient Scott Reef has been thriving for 15 million years, having adapted to changing seas. Today, it is a haven for marine life, providing vital habitat for more than a thousand species, including corals, fish, sharks and rays.
The deep waters surrounding the reef are home to 29 known species of whale and dolphin, including endangered pygmy blue whales, which travel along the Western Australian coast and stop at Scott Reef during their annual migration to forage and feed. The dusky sea snake, also classified as endangered, lives at Scott Reef. Sandy Islet, part of Scott Reef, is a nesting ground for a small population of genetically distinct green sea turtles, a species classified as vulnerable.
If Woodside, Australia’s largest oil and gas company, were to gain approval to drill for gas at Scott Reef, the ecosystem would face a barrage of industrial impacts, including seismic blasting, gas flaring, underwater noise, artificial lighting, pipe- laying, and fast-moving vessels over years of construction and operation. Add to that the risk of a major oil spill that could be Australia’s worst environmental disaster, with consequences spreading far beyond Scott Reef.
A disaster worse than Montara, according to Woodside itself
Woodside has proposed drilling 50 new wells around Scott Reef to extract oil and gas from beneath the reef as part of the Browse project. Woodside has proposed to build a 900-kilometre-long undersea pipeline to connect the Scott Reef-Browse site with its North West Shelf facility at Karratha in Western Australia, where the gas would be processed, mostly for international export. Woodside has modelled a number of possible oil spill scenarios that could result from the Browse project. Woodside performed this modelling to comply with mandatory environmental impact assessment requirements under Federal and Western Australian laws.
To identify which areas are at risk of an oil spill from the Browse project, Woodside engaged experts to conduct probabilistic modelling. Experts simulated different spills, noting which locations would be contaminated by oil and how much oil would make it to shore. They also assessed how likely each location was to be affected.
” Woodside’s ‘worst case’ scenario is a blowout at the Torosa gasfield, directly under Scott Reef.”
Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley’s analysis shows an oil spill at Torosa could see 893,739 barrels of condensate spilled into the Timor Sea. This would be up to 30 times bigger than the 2009 Montara oil spill, considered one of Australia’s worst environmental disasters. Oil leaked into the Timor Sea for days after an oil rig caught fire off the Western Australian coast, causing a 90,000 square kilometre oil slick that spread all the way to Indonesia.
People, places and wildlife at risk
Woodside’s modelling shows that an oil spill at Scott Reef could affect eight reefs, at least nine marine parks and three Indigenous Protected Areas. In the event of a worst-case oil spill, Scott Reef and Sandy Islet, being closest to the wellhead, would be worst affected.
Woodside’s modelling finds that the impacts to Scott Reef from a major spill like this ‘would likely be severe and potentially irreversible’. The impacts of an oil spill are not confined to Scott Reef – according to Woodside’s modelling, ‘hydrocarbon spills resulting from the proposed Browse to NWS Project have the potential to significantly impact shoreline habitats at Scott Reef, Ashmore Reef, Cartier Island and Rowley Shoals.’
Oil from a blowout could also reach neighbouring countries, including Pulau Rote, Savu, Sumba and West Timor in Indonesia, and Timor Leste. This is not an exhaustive list of all places that could be affected by an oil spill at Scott Reef. Once oil hits the water, its spread is influenced by the wind, tides, currents and other external conditions. An oil spill from the Browse project could have a less or more severe impact than the modelling indicates. Equally, Woodside cannot rule out other sites being affected.
A disaster for marine life
Woodside’s oil spill modelling shows that a blowout from the Browse project would put whales, turtles, seabirds, coral, significant feedstocks such as plankton and seagrass, fish, dolphins and other marine life at risk. According to Woodside, a Browse oil spill would:
- Directly threaten the coral at Scott Reef, with ‘potential for near total coral mortality in the worst affected areas’; a severe spill could also harm coral at Seringapatam Reef and the Rowley Shoals.
- ‘Significantly impact’ the plankton, seagrass and macroalgae that support the entire food chain.
- ‘Significantly impact bird species, including protected species’, which are ‘particularly vulnerable’ to oil spills.
A spill would not only threaten birds at Scott Reef, but those that nest or breed at Ashmore Reef and Cartier Island, Browse Island, islands along the Kimberley coastline (such as the Lacepede Islands) and Rowley Shoals. Woodside’s oil spill modelling specifically notes the potential risk to thirteen species of seabirds.
Oil spills also threaten whales and other cetaceans, especially concentrations of oil on the surface of the water. This can cause ‘sublethal and lethal effects’, especially when feeding, as whales and other marine mammals have been found to aspirate oil when breathing through an oil slick at the sea surface, thus absorbing hydrocarbons directly into their lungs, leading to sublethal and lethal impacts.
According to Woodside’s modelling, a Browse oil spill could be particularly harmful to the spinner dolphins living at Scott Reef with the potential for ‘a significant portion of this local population to be impacted in the event of a worst-case hydrocarbon spill’.
Marine reptiles, including the green sea turtles found at Scott Reef, are also at risk. Woodside’s modelling warns that an oil spill could cause ‘significant mortality amongst adults and hatchlings’, leading to ‘the potential for longer-term impacts on the Scott Reef – Browse Island genetic stock of green turtles’. Further, an oil spill could have lasting impacts on the breeding populations of olive ridley turtles, flatback turtles and hawksbill turtles. Essentially, all marine life found at or near the sea surface could be impacted by such a spill.
Woodside cannot be trusted
In Woodside’s inadequate response plan, Woodside states that it considers an oil spill to be ‘highly unlikely’ and the threat to the environment and wildlife to be ‘acceptable’. We do not believe these are credible assertions. For instance, the WA Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), which is assessing Woodside’s Browse to NWS proposal, did not agree. In August 2024, it emerged that the EPA advised Woodside that its Browse development posed ‘unacceptable’ risks to WA’s environment.
A potential oil spill from the Torosa field was one of the risks cited by the EPA in its preliminary decision not to approve the project. Woodside has subsequently revised its plans to drill for gas at Scott Reef, proposing to use unproven new technology that the company claims would bring a spill under control more quickly, reducing the spill time from 77 days to 13 days.
However, an independent assessment commissioned by Woodside did not support these claims. Instead, the expert questioned whether the piece of equipment proposed by Woodside — a capping stack — could be deployed in practice, and the time it would likely take to do so.
While Woodside has also claimed that a ‘pyrotechnic shear ram’ would reduce the spill time to as little as 24 hours, the company’s expert noted that this had yet to be ‘used in anger’ and that ‘there remains a risk’ that it fails to function.
Woodside’s alarming track record
Woodside’s stated ability to prevent or control a disaster is undercut by its poor environmental and safety track record. There have been numerous incidents at Woodside’s facilities over the last decade threatening the safety of its workers and the environment. These include:
- Whale calf collision: In August 2023, a tugboat operated by a Woodside contractor hit a whale calf in the Port of Dampier. The incident was only confirmed by the Department of Biodiversity, Conservation and Attractions (DBCA) after media inquiries.
- Explosion at Pluto LNG plant: In May 2023, an explosion forced Woodside to shut down and evacuate its Pluto LNG facility. Woodside was accused by unions of downplaying the incident. Eighteen months later, Woodside was again forced to put Pluto LNG into an emergency shutdown after the control systems failed.
- Oil spill near Ningaloo: In May 2025, Woodside spilled 16,000 litres of ‘hydrocarbons’ into the ocean near World Heritage listed Ningaloo Reef while decommissioning its Griffin facility. Three months later, the government regulator ordered Woodside to stop decommissioning operations at Griffin and nearby Stybarrow following a series of ‘preventable health and safety incidents’ at both sites.
- Oil spill in Cossack field: In 2016, a Woodside oil rig in the Cossack field leaked over 10,500 litres of oil into the ocean due to a degraded seal.
- Northern Endeavour clean-up debacle: Woodside evaded a $362 million decommissioning bill for its Northern Endeavour oil platform in the Timor Sea by offloading it onto a one-person operation. When the buyer went bankrupt, the Federal Government had to step in, eventually putting a levy on offshore oil and gas companies to recover the clean up costs.
- Cost-cutting and corrosion: In 2021, Woodside announced a 30% cut in operating costs, focusing on maintenance, despite repeated warnings from the government regulator about corrosion at its oil and gas facilities. The warnings continued. In July 2023, the regulator blamed Woodside’s ‘inadequate maintenance’ for serious corrosion of the flare bridge and support structure at its North Rankin complex.
- Abandoned infrastructure: Woodside finished extracting oil from the Enfield field in 2018. In 2019, the government regulator ordered Woodside to remove the Nganhurra Riser Turret Mooring (RTM), an 83-metre-long, 2,452 tonne piece of infrastructure. Woodside instead tried to sink the RTM near the World Heritage-listed Ningaloo Reef. After a public outcry, Woodside finally removed the RTM in October 2023.
A lasting legacy for our oceans: Save Scott Reef from Woodside’s pollution
Woodside’s Browse proposal to drill for oil and gas presents unacceptable risks to Scott Reef and the web of life it supports from Western Australia to Indonesia.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific and Environs Kimberley are calling on the WA and Federal Governments to save Scott Reef by rejecting Woodside’s Browse project once and for all.
What you can do
Together, we still have the power to stop Woodside and save Scott Reef.
You can help by:
- Sending an email to Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, calling on them to reject Browse.
- Sharing this story to help more Australians understand what’s at stake.
- Encouraging your friends and family to take action.
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