When you think of Santos, what comes to mind first? For cycling fans or Adelaide locals, it might be the Tour Down Under – the professional cycling race happening this month in South Australia, with Santos as the major sponsor.
But Santos recently faced far less attention for a significant event this month: a court date for an oil spill that occurred 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 liters of oil were released into the Indian Ocean. The spill occurred in waters of significant cultural importance to the Ngarluma and Yindjibarndi people, and dead dolphins and other sea creatures were found in the affected area shortly after the spill. Despite this damage, the multi-billion dollar corporation was fined only $10,000 – a mere slap on the wrist.
For comparison, the maximum fine for an individual person in South Australia dumping only 50 liters worth of litter is up to $30,000 or 6 months in jail. Why are multi-billion dollar corporations allowed to escape responsibility in such cases?
This 2022 oil spill is just one instance on a long list of spills, leaks, and explosions on Santos projects that have harmed workers, marine life, and the environment.
Furthermore, in January 2023, another pipeline in South Australia had a major explosion. 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. It seems like court cases and exploding pipelines are becoming a new year’s tradition for the Adelaide-headquartered company.
Even in 2023, a terrifying video from a Santos offshore gas project in WA showed several rope access technicians narrowly avoiding serious injury or death after a lift mishap.
We could continue, but we’ll end here for today.
The Great Cover Up: community sponsorships
Major companies like Santos sponsor community events like the Tour Down Under to enhance their reputation. They strive to be associated with ‘helping out the community’ as much as they work to conceal their environmental damage.
When Santos spilled 25,000 liters of oil into the ocean in 2022, they failed to report it. A year later, an anonymous whistleblower accused Santos of a cover-up.
“In defiance of their obligations, Santos had not mobilized 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 willful refusal to accept responsibility.”
Santos is not an anomaly. Many fossil fuel corporations have spills and explosions for which they try to evade responsibility, including Woodside – who now seeks trust to drill for gas near Scott Reef, putting endangered whales, turtles, and sea snakes at risk.
Companies like Santos and Woodside often sponsor community events to gain power. This smooths the path to their project approvals and makes communities reliant on the very fossil fuel companies responsible for the significant costs that communities bear when cleaning up after environmental or climate disasters.
Fossil fuel companies like Santos contribute to worsening climate change
It’s not only Santos’ spills and explosions that cause harm but also the fossil fuels they produce for profit.
Just 78 companies and state entities are responsible for over 70% of the toxic carbon pollution fueling climate change, leaving the rest of us to cover the massive costs of disasters they helped create. Everyday Australians currently pay $13 billion per year to clean up the impacts of climate change.
In 2022 alone, Santos made over US$3.8 billion.
We must not allow billion-dollar companies to profit from polluting while trying to regain social approval by sponsoring local sports teams and competitions. Coal, oil, and gas companies are the primary contributors to climate change, causing damage for which they should be responsible.
