A major incident during the installation of Woodside's Scarborough pipeline off Western Australia has raised serious concerns for Indigenous custodians, environmentalists and the union representing offshore workers.
There were two separate incidents in January on a contractor vessel, Castorone, while it was working on the installation of the Scarborough trunkline, which was damaged, Woodside has confirmed.
Neither resulted in injury and the safety of workers, the environment and its assets remained the 'highest priority', according to a spokesperson.
"Woodside teams have been working to support (Italian owner of the vessel) Saipem and ensure the wellbeing of all personnel ... safe ongoing operations and remediation work to the trunkline."
But the union that represents workers on the project, the Offshore Alliance, says it has been raising safety issues for months.
"After being lucky not to kill workers on the Castorone earlier in the year in a major incident which resulted in the Scarborough Project pipelayer being shut down, Saipem have f***ed things up once again by flooding the pipe," the union said in a Facebook post.
"This is a major incident which is almost inevitably going to shut the Castorone down for an extended period.
"Unions have been warning Woodside about the poor safety and maintenance culture of Saipem and the inevitable impact on our members and the project more broadly."
Mardudhunera woman Raelene Cooper won a Federal court case in September when her lawyers, the Environmental Defender's Office, argued the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority wrongly approved the project before Woodside had consulted with Murujuga traditional custodians on seismic testing work, a precursor to drilling.
Ms Cooper said she was scared for animals, the environment and for her sacred songlines.
“When incidents like the Scarborough pipeline disaster ... happen it is traumatic, it is tragic and it is terrifying," she said.
"Man, industry, governments, decision-makers are making terrible decisions to allow these companies and these projects to go ahead without knowing the unknowns ... what happens when a fully pressurised gas pipeline breaks in our precious ocean?"
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) called for the gas project to be halted.
“This second pipeline rupture in a month shows Woodside cannot be trusted on safety or environmental protection,” ACF’s exports campaigner Elizabeth Sullivan said.
“Woodside’s climate-wrecking Scarborough gas project should not proceed."
The Scarborough project is backed by the WA government and includes drilling 13 offshore wells, a 430km pipeline and the redevelopment of Woodside's onshore processing facility.
Woodside expects to process five to eight million tonnes of gas per year from it, which critics say could result in the release of an estimated 878 million tonnes of carbon across the project's lifetime.
The onshore facility is located on the Burrup Peninsula, about 30km west of Karratha, known as Murujuga to traditional owners, and contains the world's largest and oldest collection of petroglyphs.
