Growing up in the UK, there's one date that everyone knows. 1066, when William, Duke of Normandy invaded England defeating Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings with a well-aimed arrow to the eye.

And it could just be that 12 September 2025 becomes a legendary date within the Australian energy industry, with rumours that the environment minister Murray Watt is on the cusp of bringing to an end the long-running saga of Woodside's application to extend the life of their North West Shelf gas project.

Why today? Well, for starters it's a full 107 days since Watt announced his proposed approval the application to extend the lifespan of the project. Rather than the 10 days which he gave Woodside to respond to his conditions (which still have not been made public), Woodside's boffins and officials from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) have spent more than 15 weeks locked in negotiations.

Woodside's CEO Meg O'Neill has expressed her frustrations over the length of time this has taken, as has Watt himself, conceding it's a complex process and needs to be fully worked through.

Sources close to the heart of the matter have revealed that the government's insistence that Woodside brings under control their nitrous oxide emissions is cause of the delay, as the government seeks to ensure the well-being of the rock art in the now UNESCO-listed Murujuga landscape.

And it's this rock art which makes today even more likely that we will finally get some sort of resolution.

Eighteen days ago, a federal court judge in Sydney ruled that the office of the environment minister had taken an unreasonable amount of time to deal with a section 10 application filed by Traditional Owner Raelene Cooper for special protections to be considered for the rock art.

The judge's opinion was that, seeing as the application was filed in February 2022 when Sussan Ley was the environment minister, and neither she, nor her successor Tanya Plibersek, nor her successor Watt had addressed it, Cooper's complaint was valid.

But rather than insisting on a date by which it had to be addressed, the judge said if Watt had not responded to Cooper's application within the next 18 days, then she was at liberty to bring the matter back to the court, presumably in the expectation of being given a more forceful resolution.

That 18-day period comes to an end today and, one would assume, Watt would prefer not to be dragged back to court and given a slapped wrist and it would again be fair to assume a decision on that issue at least is coming today.

Added to this is the rumours that significant progress has been made in recent days between Woodside and DCCEEW and so all things being equal, it would make sense for the Watt to bring both matters to a nice, tidy end today.

And judging by the amount of material (mostly from opponents of the North West Shelf) that is filling up ENB's inbox this morning (another just dropped in, as this sentence was written, I kid you not), others are of the same opinion.

Murray Watt decrevit. Murray Watt has decided.

However, as we reported yesterday, it's looking increasingly likely that if the government and Woodside have managed to work a way through the conditions and the approval is granted, a challenge in the International Courts of Justice could be on the agenda, brought by the government of Vanuatu. Which in anyone's book is not a good look for Australia as it hopes to win the rights to co-host COP31 with the Pacific nations.

And frankly, with the state of the laws and environmental regulations in Australia, it would surely not surprise anyone if the project were taken back into court in some way or other.

And that's the annoying thing about social license. You can't nail it down with statistics or evidence-based research.

Social license is a living, breathing thing. It's malleable. It will transform and adapt as the world and attitudes change. And it will likely cause continued headaches for industrial execs for many years to come.

It is an undeniable fact that the world needs gas for the time being. But the level of traction being gained by opponents of fossil fuels suggests that time could be limited by the weight public opinion.

Yours, 

Russell Yeo