A traditional owner has won a last-minute bid to delay construction of a major gas pipeline in the Timor Sea.
Simon Munkara, a member of the Jikilaruwu Tiwi Island clan, applied for an urgent injunction in the Federal Court to prevent Santos commencing work while his case is heard.
Mr Munkara argues Santos has not properly assessed submerged cultural heritage along the route of the Barossa export pipeline, which runs within 7km of Bathurst Island.
Justice Natalie Charlesworth granted the injunction on Thursday, hours before Santos was due to start laying the pipe.
Santos submitted the delay to its $5.3 billion Barossa gas development would have significant financial impacts on stakeholders but Justice Charlesworth ruled the damage to Tiwi traditional owners could be worse.
"I am satisfied that if the works were to continue and if Santos is in breach ... that there will be irreparable damage to Mr Munkara," she said on Thursday morning.
"I am not satisfied the short-term relief presently sought would be such as to render the pipeline program impossible."
The judge said the costs of delaying the ship due to begin laying the pipe this week are significant but Santos should have been prepared.
"In its business operations, we expect Santos would accommodate risks of the kind involved with cessation or disruption of works," she said.
Santos' Barossa gas drilling project has been on hold since 2022 after the Federal Court found it failed to consult traditional owners over their cultural interests in the development area.
The win was a landmark court case marking one of the first times traditional owners' cultural and spiritual connections to the sea were successfully argued.
Santos had hoped to begin laying the pipeline in November this year to keep the project on track while waiting for the regulator to approve an updated environmental plan for the drilling activity.
Mr Munkara's lawyers told the court he had been pressing the regulator for months to review its decision to approve the pipe laying - arguing there was no proper assessment of the risks to underwater cultural heritage.
With no result, he decided to sue Santos.
"There are burial grounds and other important things from our ancestors there," Mr Munkara's lawyer Fiona Button read from his statement on Wednesday.
"Even though it has been a long time and it’s under the water, it was always our heritage and it is all part of our beliefs."
Ms Button, from the Environmental Defenders Office, said since the regulator approved Santos' environmental plan in February 2020, more information has come to light on the risks.
"There has been growing recognition in the expert evidence and statements from traditional owners and the decisions of this court, and the full court, of the traditional connections of Tiwi people, not just to coastlines but to Tiwi sea country more generally,” Ms Button said.
In its submission, Santos argued the late bid by Mr Munkara was strategic and a new environmental plan was not necessary.
"Santos appreciates the risks or the issues, it's not simply turning a blind eye," barrister Vanessa Whittaker said on Wednesday.
"The fact you've identified Tiwi heritage or potential concerns that go to the shore ... the fact those have broadened in scope to accommodate under the sea, doesn't necessarily trigger the precondition to an entirely new environmental plan."
It argued the pipe-laying works, at 3km a day, would take several days to reach an area of "cultural concern".
The judge said it was not up to her to decide the cultural heritage risks of the development.
Santos and Mr Munkara will return to court on November 13 for a hearing to determine whether the gas company will need to reassess the environmental impacts of the pipeline.
Santos is not permitted to lay any part of the pipe until then.
