Nanna Kathy has been researching and campaigning against coal seam gas since February 2011 and along the way she’s heard many yarns. She’s decided to share some of them over the next few weeks. The first one goes back to the beginning of gas in eastern Australia.
This story starts in Roma in southern Queensland during a desperate search for water by the government for the growing town in a drought.
I first drove to Roma in 2015 on a gas fact finding tour and was shown around The Big Rig, the local tourist information centre, by a retired Santos driller who wished not to be named. He told me that since the first Australian gas powered electricity generator was turned on in Roma in the early 1960s, a good relationship had developed between farmers and Santos.
When Santos was drilling for conventional gas and they didn’t find it, they often found water instead, and left the water bore for the farmer. So when drilling for coal seam gas started in the late 1990s, and commercial production started in 2002, the farmers were not concerned. By this time the retired driller was employed by Santos to negotiate access agreements with farmers.
After a while he, famers and contract drillers began to notice that Santos employees working in the coal seam gas side of the business were very different from their counterparts in the company’s oil and conventional gas fields.
To maintain his integrity he retired early because he could no longer ask farmers to allow drilling on their land, knowing that coal seam gas required more wells and infrastructure than conventional gas and this disrupted grazing and farming operations, particularly in closely settled areas.
But let’s go back to the beginning……………….
Deep oil drillers from Canada and the United States brought their equipment and expertise to Australia to search for oil during the 1880s. They soon discovered that it was water that was needed, not oil.
Roma has an average annual rainfall of 600mm. In 1900 due to railway demands, a growing population and a drought, the town’s creek and reservoir were found to be inadequate and a government bore was commissioned.
The drillers hit water at 1350 feet, but drilling continued to 3000 feet where a large supply of gas was encountered.[1] Water and gas gushed out of the bore head and the problem of how to separate them took several years to solve. Eventually another bore was sunk inside the existing bore, down to the gaseous strata so the gas flowed out of one pipe and water poured from the other.
A gas plant was completed at Roma in 1906 with different prices being set for lighting and cooking. When the shops and hotels were connected and lit up, they became a public attraction.[2] It was reported to give ‘a perfectly white light, and most brilliant as displayed by the block burners and mantles.’
Ten days after connecting the first premises, the gas flow stopped. It was not known if it had run out, if it was blocked by an obstruction or if the casing had leaked and the gas had found another way to escape, possibly through the town water supply. Experts were called in but the supply was never restored.
In America gas had been found deep in the earth, often alongside oil. This motivated the formation of the Roma Mineral Oil Company to explore for oil in the Roma area. In October 1908 the company’s bore struck gas at 3,680 feet.[3] When a strong wind blew towards a wood burning steam boiler, the gas ignited, and produced flames estimated to be 100 feet high. No one could go within sixty feet of the bore due to the intense heat. The iron derrick, holding the drilling machinery in place, melted. The roar emanating from the flames could be heard seven miles away. The fire was to burn for 45 days. A telegram, reporting the incident to the Queensland Government, declared that water and oil flowed from the bore.
As news of the spectacle spread many sightseers and journalists rushed to Roma. Enterprising local business owners requested the government run special trains from Brisbane on weekends, but the government did not oblige. How to extinguish the flames became the talk of the town.
An iron hood was built, eight feet by six feet square, similar to a big iron tank without a bottom. [4] It was fitted with a valve at the top and another at the side. A twenty feet pipe was attached to the top valve to act as a chimney. The contractors attempt to smother the flames was announced in a special edition of the local paper.
Hundreds of spectators took up positions close to the bore, some sitting as close to the bore as the heat would allow. The first attempt failed and they had to return the following day. They watched the hood, suspended between a 15 metre high gin-pole and the rebuilt derrick, being lowered over the flames. Flames continued to dart out from underneath the hood, but workmen and volunteers heaped earth around the bottom forcing the flames upward. [5] The valve on the side was gradually closed and a flame appeared at the top of the twenty feet pipe.
‘A great column of flame was now shooting out of the pipe already mentioned, ascending with the air to a great height. The sight was a magnificent one, and when the darkness descended the columns of flames lighted the tops of the buildings in the town and threw a glow on the sky to the west similar to that from an immense bush fire.’
Once the flames were extinguished within the hood the iron cooled allowing a pipe to be connected to the escape pipe at the side. The valve was partially opened, reducing the pressure from the chimney, allowing some gas and water to escape. The smell of kerosene permeated the air. The valve on the chimney, controlled by wires, was gradually closed to many cheers from spectators. In the ensuing darkness, they groped their way home or to the School of Arts for a celebration.
The Roma Mineral & Oil Company publicised their finding of oil and the smell of kerosene seemed to confirm it. Speculation about oil being found a bit deeper increased the price of their shares. The Queensland government geologist Mr Cameron visited the site but he saw no evidence of oil. He and his counterpart from New South Wales, Mr E.F. Pittman, agreed that the gas at Roma came from the Ipswich coal measures.[6]
In 1927, another company, the Roma Oil Corporation drilled their first well on Hospital Hill. They struck oil. The liquid was condensate, a crude oil, and as such, could be used in motor vehicles straight from the well. A car was driven from Roma to Sydney using this fuel but the well ceased to produce in 1931. Gas continued to be found around Roma but no commercial quantities of oil.
Sydney Coal Seam Gas Rally
When: Thursday, 14 September ⋅11:30am – 1:00pm
Where: Customs House, 31 Alfred St, near Circular Quay, Sydney
What: March from Customs House to Parliament House
The Gomeroi, NSW Farmers, NSW Country Women’s Association (CWA), Unions NSW and Lock the Gate are organising this rally to show politicians the diverse range of people against coal seam gas and to stop it expanding further in NSW.
Santos’ coal seam gas (CSG) plans for north-west NSW include the Pilliga Narrabri Gas Project, the Hunter Gas Pipeline and the Pilliga Lateral Pipeline. These developments will have a detrimental impact on groundwater, including the Great Artesian Basin, the Pilliga Forest and the prime agricultural land of Liverpool Plains.
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Please ask your friends to join you and share the event on social media. I hope to see you there.
[1] The Brisbane Courier, 24 May 1906
[2] Western Star and Roma Advertiser, Toowoomba, 16 June 1906
[3] Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser, 28 October 1908
[4] The Capricornian, Rockhampton, 26 December 1908
[5] The Queenslander, Brisbane, 19 December 1908, Queensland Times, Ipswich Herald and General Advertiser, 17 December 1908
[6] Is it Coal Gas, Western Star and Roma Advertiser, Toowoomba 4 November 1908,