Norwegian oil and gas giant Equinor has explained that a large number of the public submissions on its drilling plan in the Great Australian Bight were not constructive, writes Russell Searancke.

The company received 30,000 submissions to its draft environmental plan for the Stromlo-1 well.

The responses included detailed submissions and assessable comments, but also there were entries without content, duplicates, photo attachments and brief comments "which do not relate to the purpose of the public comment process", Equinor said.

"A large number of entries reviewed so far are general statements that do not offer constructive feedback," said Equinor. "We also see that many statements were influenced by material circulating online, which grossly misrepresent both the risk and consequences of a major oil spill.

"It is unfortunate that this misleading information has resulted in expressions of genuine fear and concern in many of the submissions.

"We call on all parties in this public discussion to hold themselves to a high standard of factual and balanced information."

The Norwegian operator is working through all the submissions and updating its environmental plan before filing it with the national petroleum regulator Nopsema.

Weekly

Equinor assesses feedback