The world is moving away from coal, but here in the NT the Tristar Pedirka Project is moving ahead. 

In August 2016, hours before the Giles Country Liberal Party Government went into caretaker mode, 15 000km2 of land on the southern border of the NT was packaged and essentially given to a private family company, Tri-star Petroleum as ‘general reserved land’ for ‘coal’.

This decision was made after Mines Minister had travelled to Texas to meet with the company in 2015. ALEC and the Environmental Defenders Office NT made comments expressing concerns at the time. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/aug/23/timing-of-nt-governments-secret-deal-with-tri-star-coal-company-queried

In February 2017, it was reported that TriStar had made a $5600 donation to the Country Liberal Party on July 29 2016.

In September 2017, ALEC represented by the EDONT lodged a Freedom of Information request to the Department of Primary Industries and Resources ‘seeking any correspondence which details the type of activities TRI-STAR ENERGY intends to undertake in their Northern Territory tenements’.

The request was challenged by Tri-Star and it was eventually referred to the Information Commissioner. The Information Commissioner found in our favour and recommended that the 224 pages of information be handed to ALEC in the public interest. On February 28 2019, lawyers representing Tri-Star Energy have appealed this decision and now it will be referred to NT CAT for consideration.

ALEC has concerns about the nature of this project and suspects it may be a proposed coal-to-gas or coal-to-liquids project which is highly experimental and greenhouse gas intensive. 

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