Greenpeace representatives met with officials from ChevronTexaco last Friday to hear a report on the group's plans to bring Gorgon gas, which contains a large carbon dioxide component, to Barrow Island and to reinject it into the depleted oil reserviors.

The US energy giant argues this will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by capturing the carbon dioxide below ground and allow the gas to be substituted for more polluting greenhouse gases.

However, Greenhouse climate campaigner Frances Macguire said the organisation was opposed to ChevronTexaco's plans because reinjection was not a long-term solution to the problem of emitting carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases and measures to control climate change.

"What ChevronTexaco is proposing is just perpetuating the emissions problem over the long term," Ms Macguire said.

Barrow Island, south of Dampier, is an A-class nature reserve with the Gallop Government recently beginning a strategic study to develop the Gorgon project.