Company Profile

Santos

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

Last updated:
March 2026

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

Santos is at the centre of a huge pollutant leak and alleged cover-up scandal, while still receiving enormous financial support from ANZ and Westpac.

Santos has no plans to fix or replace a faulty tank that will spew methane into the atmosphere for another 25 years.

Tell ANZ and Westpac to cut ties with this climate wrecker once and for all!

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Your message to ANZ 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.)

I am deeply concerned by recent reports that your client, Santos, despite being aware of a long-standing fault, intends to continue operating an LNG tank that has been leaking methane for nearly two decades, and to extend its use for a further 25 years without repair or replacement (1). It is reported that “the scale of leaking pollutants could be equivalent to 8,300 new cars on the road every year it is in use.”

This is a climate disaster in plain sight.

The faulty tank poses a major threat to the safety of the Darwin community and our climate. Without action, this massive leak will continue for another 25 years, as Santos plans to use the tank to store LNG from its new and devastating Barossa gas project off the Tiwi Islands.

This is not the first time Santos has shown disregard for people and the environment. In recent years the company is also reported to have:

- contaminated an aquifer in NSW’s Pilliga Forest, threatening water supplies (2),
- spilled about 250,000 litres of oil near the Lake Eyre Basin in Queensland (3), and
- been responsible for an oil spill near WA’s Lowendal Islands that killed dolphins, according to an internal whistleblower (4).

Furthermore, your bank continues to provide Santos with financial support for its reckless and harmful expansion plans.

Santos is also pursuing at least five new oil and gas projects that could add 486 million tonnes of CO₂-e to its already massive climate toll – that’s more than Australia’s total annual emissions.

The world's leading scientific and energy bodies, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and International Energy Agency are clear: to limit warming to 1.5°C, there can be no new coal, oil, or gas developments.

Santos’ expansion plans are completely inconsistent with the climate goals your bank claims to support. This is a company that should be ineligible for any new or renewed finance.

In 2024 Commonwealth Bank, Australia’s largest bank, cut ties with oil and gas companies like Santos that lack a Paris-aligned transition plan (5). Your bank must do the same and make good on its climate commitments.

I urge you to take immediate action:

1. Require Santos to fully repair or replace the Darwin LNG tank, suspend its use and publicly confirm that operations will not resume until an independent audit verifies the issue has been resolved.

2. Commit to no new or renewed finance for Santos, including loans, bonds and underwriting, unless the company abandons its new oil and gas projects that are consistent with catastrophic levels of global warming.

Please respond to this letter within 14 business days outlining how your bank intends to act on these urgent matters. Anything less risks making your bank complicit in decades of environmental and climate destruction.

Sincerely,

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

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TOOK ACTION: Banks - Santos loan announcement - Sep 2025

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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

Will the funders of Santos’ Barossa project live up to their human rights commitments?

Feb 7, 2024

29 January 2023 Australia’s second biggest gas company, Santos, is able to proceed with its $5.7 billion offshore Barossa gas project, following a Federal Court decision earlier this month. Barossa is located in the Timor Sea north of Darwin and the Tiwi...

Big four banks make strides, but action still dangerously slow in a climate emergency

Nov 16, 2023

16 November 2023 All big four Australian banks have now released updated fossil fuel finance restrictions this year that have, to varying degrees, moved the dial on what they can’t finance going forward. But, like everything with the banks – the devil is in the...

NAB commits to future fossil finance restrictions, business as usual for next two years

Nov 10, 2023

10 November 2023 Yesterday NAB announced that from 1 October 2025 it will require the majority of fossil fuel companies to have Paris-aligned transition plans in place in order to provide additional lending. From that deadline, to get a corporate or project...

Westpac takes two steps forward, one big step back

Nov 8, 2023

8 November 2023 This week Westpac announced a host of new project finance restrictions for new and expanded fossil fuel projects, but also walked back a key policy that restricts finance to the companies developing them. In a disappointing regression on its...

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Cover image credit: Jeremy Buckingham

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