Environmentalists and local residents are furious: the Australian company ADX now wants to drill for gas in southern Upper Austria after Molln. Half a billion cubic meters of natural gas is suspected directly at the Lichtenberg lookout tower and near the Attersee.
A week ago, test drilling for fossil gas, which environmentalists are fighting against, started on Saturday morning in Molln in the Kirchdorf district, near the Kalkalpen National Park. It could not be the only foray into natural gas by ADX Vie GmbH – a subsidiary of Australian-listed exploration company ADX Energy – in Upper Austria this year. In the fourth quarter it will be possible to start exploratory drilling in the municipality of St. Georgen im Attergau.
The Ministry of Finance’s West Mining Authority had already approved an exploration drilling near St. Georgen in autumn 2023 and the decision of the nature conservation department of the state of Upper Austria was also available, ADX Energy confirmed. All agreements with the relevant property owners have also been ‘completed, so that all requirements for the Lichtenberg well have already been met’, the company confirms in a ‘profile report’. ADX Energy had already informed the stock exchange about this in a mandatory notification on December 4, 2023.
Drilling could start in the fourth quarter, but there is also a second option: the Irrsdorf drilling site in the municipality of Straßwalchen in the Salzburger Flachgau. However, the permits here are not yet as advanced as in St. Georgen. A final decision for either of the two positions has not yet been made, the report said.
In any case, the suspected gas reserves at the Lichtenberg drilling point are considerably smaller than in Molln. The Austrian-Australian company accepts 24 billion cubic meters of natural gas there, and about half a billion in St. Georgen.
Source: Krone
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