What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Santos? If you’re a cycling fan or an Adelaide local, it might be the Tour Down Under – the pro-cycling race happening this month in South Australia of which Santos is the major sponsor.
However the fossil fuel company got far less attention for another big event that took place earlier this month: a court date for an oil spill that took place a few years ago.
Santos: Spiller Down Under
On January 6 2025, Santos pleaded guilty and was convicted of substandard operations leading to an oil spill in 2022 off the coast of Western Australia, where 25,000 litres of oil were released into the Indian Ocean. The spill took place in waters which hold significant cultural importance for the Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi people. Dead dolphins and other sea creatures were also found in the affected area shortly after the oil spill. For all of this damage the multi-billion dollar corporation was fined a measly $10,000 – nothing but a slap on the wrist.
For comparison, the maximum fine for an individual person in South Australia dumping only 50L worth of litter is up to $30,000, or 6 months in jail. Why are multi-billion dollar corporations allowed to get away with this?
This oil spill in 2022 is just one example on a long list of spills, leaks, and explosions on Santos projects that have harmed workers, marine life, and the environment.
In January 2023 another pipeline in South Australia had a major explosion. And in 2011 Santos was fined for breaching workplace safety laws after an explosion at the Moomba gas plant, on New Year’s Day in 2004. Come to think about it, this year’s fine was also a few days after new years in 2025. Are court cases and exploding pipelines becoming a new years tradition for the Adelaide headquartered company?
Also in 2023, a terrifying video from a Santos offshore gas project in WA shows several rope access technicians narrowly missing serious injury or death after a lift went badly wrong.
We could go on, but we’ll stop there for today.
The Great Cover Up: community sponsorships
The reason that major companies like Santos are sponsoring community events like the Tour Down Under is to bolster their reputation. They’ll go to great lengths to be associated with ‘helping out the community’ – almost as great as the lengths they will go to cover up their environmental damage.
When Santos spilled 25,000L of oil into the ocean in 2022, they failed to report it. A year later, an anonymous whistleblower accused Santos of a coverup.
“In defiance of their obligations, Santos had not mobilised environmental assessors to the island until a week after the incident,” said the whistleblower. “They could not have known the real scale of impact, it was never checked.” He also noted that he “was appalled at the culture and management within Santos, which demonstrated such wilful refusal to accept responsibility.”
Santos is not an anomaly. Many fossil fuel corporations have spills and explosions that they try to evade responsibility for, including Woodside – who now wants to be trusted to drill for gas near Scott Reef, threatening endangered whales, turtles, and sea snakes.
Companies like Santos and Woodside frequently sponsor community events because doing so buys them power. It smooths the way to their project approvals, and it makes communities reliant on the very fossil fuel companies who are responsible for the huge costs that then fall on communities when they have to clean up after environmental or climate disasters.
Fossil fuel companies like Santos are making climate change worse
It’s not just Santos’ spills and explosions that are causing harm, it’s the fossil fuels it produces for a profit.
Just 78 companies and state entities are responsible for over 70% of the toxic carbon pollution that’s driving climate change, but they’re leaving the rest of us to foot the bill for the massive cost of disasters they’ve helped to cause. Everyday Australians are currently paying $13 billion per year to clean up the impacts of climate change.
Let’s not forget that in 2022 alone, Santos raked in over US$3.8 billion.
We shouldn’t let billion-dollar companies profit off polluting while buying back social license from sponsoring local swim teams and sports competitions. Coal, oil and gas companies are the biggest contributors to climate change. They cause the damage – they should be paying to fix it.
Stop New Coal, Oil and Gas Projects
Sign the petition to demand the Australian Government stop new coal, oil and gas projects now.
https://www.greenpeace.org.au/article/santos-tour-down-under-why-fossil-fuel-companies-should-be-best-known-for-their-pollution-not-their-sponsorships/
The case shows that climate change is a fundamental human rights violation—and the victory of Bonaire, a Dutch territory, could open the door for similar lawsuits globally.
From our collaborating partner Living on Earth, public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by Paloma Beltran with Greenpeace Netherlands campaigner Eefje de Kroon.
A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won
Climate Change
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
SYDNEY, Saturday 28 February 2026 — Greenpeace International and Greenpeace organisations in the US announce they will seek a new trial and, if necessary, appeal the decision with the North Dakota Supreme Court following a North Dakota District Court judgment today awarding Energy Transfer (ET) USD $345 million.
ET’s SLAPP suit remains a blatant attempt to silence free speech, erase Indigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. Greenpeace International will also continue to seek damages for ET’s bullying lawsuits under EU anti-SLAPP legislation in the Netherlands.
Mads Christensen, Greenpeace International Executive Director said: “Energy Transfer’s attempts to silence us are failing. Greenpeace International will continue to resist intimidation tactics. We will not be silenced. We will only get louder, joining our voices to those of our allies all around the world against the corporate polluters and billionaire oligarchs who prioritise profits over people and the planet.
“With hard-won freedoms under threat and the climate crisis accelerating, the stakes of this legal fight couldn’t be higher. Through appeals in the US and Greenpeace International’s groundbreaking anti-SLAPP case in the Netherlands, we are exploring every option to hold Energy Transfer accountable for multiple abusive lawsuits and show all power-hungry bullies that their attacks will only result in a stronger people-powered movement.”
The Court’s final judgment today rejects some of the jury verdict delivered in March 2025, but still awards hundreds of millions of dollars to ET without a sound basis in law. The Greenpeace defendants will continue to press their arguments that the US Constitution does not allow liability here, that ET did not present evidence to support its claims, that the Court admitted inflammatory and irrelevant evidence at trial and excluded other evidence supporting the defense, and that the jury pool in Mandan could not be impartial.[1][2]
ET’s back-to-back lawsuits against Greenpeace International and the US organisations Greenpeace USA (Greenpeace Inc.) and Greenpeace Fund are clear-cut examples of SLAPPs — lawsuits attempting to bury nonprofits and activists in legal fees, push them towards bankruptcy and ultimately silence dissent.[3] Greenpeace International, which is based in the Netherlands, is pursuing justice in Europe, with a suit against ET under Dutch law and the European Union’s new anti-SLAPP directive, a landmark test of the new legislation which could help set a powerful precedent against corporate bullying.[4]
Kate Smolski, Program Director at Greenpeace Australia Pacific, said: “This is part of a worrying trend globally: fossil fuel corporations are increasingly using litigation to attack and silence ordinary people and groups using the law to challenge their polluting operations — and we’re not immune to these tactics here in Australia.
“Rulings like this have a chilling effect on democracy and public interest litigation — we must unite against these silencing tactics as bad for Australians and bad for our democracy. Our movement is stronger than any corporate bully, and grows even stronger when under attack.”
Energy Transfer’s SLAPPs are part of a wave of abusive lawsuits filed by Big Oil companies like Shell, Total, and ENI against Greenpeace entities in recent years.[3] A couple of these cases have been successfully stopped in their tracks. This includes Greenpeace France successfully defeating TotalEnergies’ SLAPP on 28 March 2024, and Greenpeace UK and Greenpeace International forcing Shell to back down from its SLAPP on 10 December 2024.
-ENDS-
Images available in Greenpeace Media Library
Notes:
[1] The judgment entered by North Dakota District Court Judge Gion follows a jury verdict finding Greenpeace entities liable for more than US$660 million on March 19, 2025. Judge Gion subsequently threw out several items from the jury’s verdict, reducing the total damages to approximately US$345 million.
[2] Public statements from the independent Trial Monitoring Committee
[3] Energy Transfer’s first lawsuit was filed in federal court in 2017 under the RICO Act – the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a US federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity. The case was dismissed in 2019, with the judge stating the evidence fell “far short” of what was needed to establish a RICO enterprise. The federal court did not decide on Energy Transfer’s claims based on state law, so Energy Transfer promptly filed a new case in a North Dakota state court with these and other state law claims.
[4] Greenpeace International sent a Notice of Liability to Energy Transfer on 23 July 2024, informing the pipeline giant of Greenpeace International’s intention to bring an anti-SLAPP lawsuit against the company in a Dutch Court. After Energy Transfer declined to accept liability on multiple occasions (September 2024, December 2024), Greenpeace International initiated the first test of the European Union’s anti-SLAPP Directive on 11 February 2025 by filing a lawsuit in Dutch court against Energy Transfer. The case was officially registered in the docket of the Court of Amsterdam on 2 July, 2025. Greenpeace International seeks to recover all damages and costs it has suffered as a result of Energy Transfers’s back-to-back, abusive lawsuits demanding hundreds of millions of dollars from Greenpeace International and the Greenpeace organisations in the US. The next hearing in the Court of Amsterdam is scheduled for 16 April, 2026.
Media contact:
Kate O’Callaghan on 0406 231 892 or kate.ocallaghan@greenpeace.org
The Trump administration’s relentless rollback of public health and environmental protections has allowed widespread toxic exposures to flourish, warn experts who helped implement safeguards now under assault.
In a new report that outlines a dozen high-risk pollutants given new life thanks to weakened, delayed or rescinded regulations, the Environmental Protection Network, a nonprofit, nonpartisan group of hundreds of former Environmental Protection Agency staff, warns that the EPA under President Donald Trump has abandoned the agency’s core mission of protecting people and the environment from preventable toxic exposures.
Former EPA Staff Detail Expanding Pollution Risks Under Trump
The Positive Effects We’ve Had on Others Are Profound, Whether We Know It or Not
A Tiny Caribbean Island Sued the Netherlands Over Climate Change, and Won
Greenpeace organisations to appeal USD $345 million court judgment in Energy Transfer’s intimidation lawsuit
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