Company Profile

Santos

Santos’ climate-wrecking oil and gas expansion plans and the financial institutions backing them

Last updated:
July 2025

Santos is one of Australia’s largest producers of oil and gas, and is pursuing massive expansion plans consistent with the failure of the Paris Agreement. The company is currently building the Barossa gas project off the coast of the Tiwi Islands and is seeking to build the Narrabri gas project in New South Wales.

The projects that Santos is trying to pursue include:

The Barossa gas project: off the coast of the Northern Territory the Barossa gas project is in the water north of Tiwi. In April 2023, a group of Tiwi and Larrakia Traditional Owners filed a human rights complaint against the banks that lent to Santos, saying their human rights had been breached.

The Narrabri gas project: Santos plans to drill 850 gas wells throughout the Pilliga Forest in NSW despite years of opposition from Gomeroi Traditional Owners and farmers.

The Dorado oil and gas project: off the coast of Western Australia Santos announced this is Australia’s second largest oil reserve despite the clear science confirming it is out of line with the Paris agreement.

Papua LNG project: located in Papua New Guinea many organisations have raised the serious human rights and biodiversity risks associated with the project.

Will you email the banks calling on them to stop supporting Santos and its destructive projects?

Take Action

ANZ, NAB and Westpac have broken their climate promises again, arranging a massive $1.2 billion loan for one of Australia’s worst climate wreckers, Santos.

This is unacceptable. Hold them accountable by taking action now.

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Your message to ANZ, NAB, and Westpac

(A salutation to the CEO and Chair of each bank will be added to the top. Your name will be automatically added to the bottom of the email.)

Your bank's choice to go ahead with a loan to Santos, a pure-play expansionist oil and gas company, violates your climate commitments and erodes your credibility.

Your bank's approach to fossil fuel clients is clearly failing and demonstrates the need for an urgent amendment to your climate policy.

As a Net Zero Banking Alliance (NZBA) member your bank has committed to transitioning your lending and investment portfolios in line with the goals of the Paris Agreement. Your bank claims to be actively supporting your energy clients to transition their businesses in line with a safe climate.

These commitments mean that any finance your bank provides to a major fossil fuel company like Santos should be categorised as 'transition finance' with the explicit intent and strict allocation to support that client transition their business activities in line with net zero.

The IPCC and IEA have made it clear that any new and expanded fossil fuel projects are not compatible with a 1.5°C scenario, and that existing and committed fossil fuel infrastructure is already enough to push us past the 1.5°C threshold you have committed to. We cannot have any more new coal, oil or gas developments take place.

Santos is currently building two new massive projects that are yet to come online and is also  trying to progress another three new oil and gas projects underway. It is blatant that Santos is not aligned with a 1.5°C scenario and is not making credible progress to transition.

Providing Santos capital seriously calls into question the bank's due diligence process. You are actively enabling practices antithetical to your commitments to a liveable climate and safe planet.

There is no reason your bank should be funding Santos. The Commonwealth Bank of Australia is not part of a 2024 loan to Santos, and has brought forward requirements of their oil and gas clients to demonstrate they are aligned with a transition to net zero. CommBank has stated:

"For clients with Transition Plans assessed as 'Does not meet' our core criteria, or who had not yet provided a Transition Plan, we engaged with them further. In some instances, we determined that a client would not have, or would be unlikely to have, a Transition Plan meeting our core criteria by 31 December 2024. Once such a determination was made, we did not provide new corporate or trade finance, or bond facilitation with a maturity beyond 31 December 2024, except for uncommitted exposures that could be cancelled by 31 December 2024. We took the same approach for refinancing." (p. 59, CBA Climate Report 2024).

CommBank has closed the door to oil and gas companies incompatible with a safe climate, at the same time your bank has not only kept the door open, but thrown a fundraising party for Australia’s second biggest pure play oil and gas company. This is an utter disgrace.

It is vital that your bank urgently address the approach you take to fossil fuel companies such as Santos and bring forward expectations that these clients demonstrate alignment with a 1.5°C warming scenario. Where these clients are unable to provide transition plans and credibly demonstrate they are transitioning, these clients should be barred from any new or renewed finance of any kind.

I urge you to actually live up to your climate commitments and amend your climate policies this year. Your shareholders, customers and all concerned citizens.

Sincerely,

Yes, of course I want updates about Market Forces campaigns!

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TOOK ACTION: Banks - Santos loan announcement - Sep 2024

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Gomeroi Aunties Deborah Briggs, Theresa Roberts, and Donna Kenny at the 2025 Santos AGM

Top 20 financiers (bonds arranged, loans provided) to Santos in 2023 and 2024:

Note: To our knowledge, CommBank has not financed Santos since 2022. CommBank also withdrew from a loan refinancing for Santos in September 2024, and has a policy that effectively renders Santos ineligible for further finance from the bank.

In Australia:

ANZ
NAB
Westpac

In Japan:

MUFG
Mizuho
SMBC

In China:

Bank of China
China Construction Bank
Agricultural Bank of China
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC)

Asia (excluding China and Japan):

DBS
UOB
State Bank of India

In North America:

Citigroup
Goldman Sachs
Royal Bank of Canada

In Europe:

Deutsche Bank
ING
DNB
Intesa Sanpaolo

Tiwi Traditional Owners protest Santos Barossa project in Japan

Tiwi Traditional Owners Therese Bourke and Pirrawayingi traveled to Japan to call on MUFG, SMBC and Mizuho to cut ties with Santos.

Tell the banks to cut ties with Santos!

Take action

Investor briefings

Company	Briefing	Date
Santos Limited	Out of line, out of time: Investors must demand more from Santos	March 2025
Santos Limited	Human rights and reputational issues with Santos' Barossa project	April 2024
Santos Limited	Misguided strategy in the face of transition risks	March 2024

Santos news

Gomeroi Traditional Owners vow to continue fighting Santos to protect Country

Apr 11, 2025

Santos continued to face heat over its oil and gas expansion plans at its 2025 Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the Adelaide Entertainment Centre. Shareholders were greeted with a protest outside the AGM in support of a safe climate and Gomeroi Traditional Owners, who...

International banks no longer involved with Santos’ Barossa gas project

Jun 17, 2024

News just broke that BNP Paribas and The Export-Import Bank of Korea, two major international banks, are no longer involved in the financing of Santos’ Barossa gas project. Tell Australian, Japanese, and other international banks to cut ties with Santos. It was...

ANZ rules out Papua LNG, leaves the door open to fund climate wrecking companies

May 9, 2024

This week ANZ announced that it would no longer provide direct financing to new or expanded oil and gas fields, new liquefied natural gas (LNG) export plants, and won’t bank any oil and gas company not already on their books. The announcement means that all big four...

Super funds are (so far) failing to vote for greater climate action this year

Apr 17, 2024

Some super funds have started disclosing how they voted at Santos’ annual general meeting (AGM) last week. The bad news is that several of these funds are wallowing in greenwash and failing to increase pressure on Santos to end its climate-wrecking oil and gas growth...

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Cover image credit: Jeremy Buckingham

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