Beetaloo Lateral Pipeline

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Beetaloo Lateral Pipeline is a series of cancelled gas pipeline routes running from the Beetaloo Basin in Northern Territory, Australia to the eastern Australia gas market.

Location

Three segments were proposed in the Northern Territory, connecting to other existing or proposed pipelines.

Project details

Amadeus Gas Pipeline (AGP) Lateral (1a)

• Capacity: 350 terajoules per day
• Status: Shelved
• Start year: 2025

Northern Gas Pipeline (NGP) Lateral (1b)

• Capacity: 350 terajoules per day
• Status: Shelved
• Start year: 2025

Beetaloo to Mount Isa Pipeline (BIP) (1c)

• Capacity: 350 terajoules per day
• Status: Shelved
• Start year: 2025

Beetaloo Lateral Pipeline Capacity Expansion

• Capacity: 1350 terajoules per day
• Status: Shelved
• Start year: 2028

Background

The Beetaloo is technically a sub-basin within the larger McArthur basin in Australia's Northern Territory. McArthur and Beetaloo are natural gas reservoirs with large potential for fracking, which has embroiled them in a loaded history.

In 2018, the Northern Territory government lifted a two-year fracking moratorium that was in place from concerns about the potential environmental impacts. The lift subjected any further development of natural gas production areas in the Northern Territory to 135 recommendations summed up in Pepper Report. This document, authored by chief justice Rachel Pepper, is known more officially as the Scientific Inquiry into Hydraulic Fracturing of Onshore Unconventional Reservoirs in the Northern Territory.

In parallel, in the 2021 Australian National Gas Infrastructure Plan (NGIP), three different potential pipeline routes were suggested to exploit the Beetaloo. The plan presented three options: small-, medium-, and large-scale development of the basin, noting that the smalle-scale development would need to be in place by 2025, and large-scale development — if deemed viable by exploration — by 2028. There were no details on potential ownership, though the plan mentions the need for such infrastructure to be in place by 2028 at the latest to avoid domestic and export shortages. But developing the Beetaloo would ostensibly require addressing the Pepper Report's stipulations, and any gas transmission pipelines would hinge on the success of this process, so a pathway forward was unclear for the infrastructure.

In May 2022, friendliness toward oil and gas production in Australia decreased with a shift in the ruling party from the center-right Liberal–National Coalition to the center-left Labor Party, led by Anthony Albanese. Over the next year or so, a substantial part of the NGIP became obsolete, or at least highly unlikely to move forward, but development of the Beetaloo seemed to be an exception.

In May 2023, the Northern Territory government greenlit further gas production in the Beetaloo and was criticized of flouting the Pepper Report conditions.

Public natural gas company Tamboran Resources swiftly publicized its intention to increase its foothold in the basin, and in June 2023 it selected APA Group as the preferred pipeline transmission partner in the enterprise. The first proposed pipeline to arise from this is documented as the Shenandoah South–Amadeus Gas Pipeline Connector.

APA Group also signed with Energy Empire Group to develop a pipeline from Beetaloo to the Daly Waters to McArthur River Gas Pipeline. The first proposed pipeline to arise from this is the Beetaloo–McArthur River Connecting Pipeline.

As of September 2023, there were no clear advances in the Beetaloo Lateral Pipeline projects on this page, and they are currently considered shelved in lieu of other more specific projects that have arisen, detailed in the paragraphs above.

As of July 2025, the pipelines conceptualized in the 2021 infrastructure plan are considered cancelled as other projects in the Beetaloo basin proceed in place of the laterals proposed by the federal government.

Opposition

In September 2023, a group of scientists and medical experts from the University of Sydney and University of Adelaide published a report demonstrating the negative impacts of oil and gas development for "human health and wellbeing in Australia", criticizing in particular the Northern Territory government's desire to unlock Beetaloo resources.

Beetaloo Lateral Pipeline Capacity Expansion

As part of potential large-scale development of the Beetaloo Basin, one of the three lateral pipeline options above would need to be expanded up to 1700 terajoules per day by 2028 (implying a capacity expansion of 1350 terajoules per day).