Origin Energy is spending up big to counteract negative publicity about its controversial coal seam gas (CSG) operations.
Last month, Origin and a number of other coal seam gas (CSG) companies launched a public relations campaign to dispel environmentalists and some farming groups’ claims about the sector.
While managing director Grant King declined to give details about the company’s advertising budget, the energy provider revealed it is publishing printed and online information as well holding community information days.
“I’m not sure we’re paying a great deal of money at all to try to advertise in the way that people might sell cereal or beer or something like that,” Mr King told reporters after the company’s annual general meeting (AGM) in Sydney on Monday.
“We do spend a lot of money making the facts available to people and making sure that we’ve commissioned studies from independent people.”
Origin reaffirmed its forecast of a 30 per cent rise in underlying profit this financial year. and again defended its operations.
Mr King said the company examined aquifers and other water sources and that he’d prefer to talk to people who had not already made up their mind on CSG.
Origin recently cut a 2500-metre core sample through the Great Artesian Basin and it is storing the core in a warehouse in Brisbane. All of Origin’s CSG assets are operated in Queensland.
Mr King said CSG was not as harmful as some had portrayed it and that the company might even take the core around on a semi-trailer to show people.
“That’s where the money and the effort goes, into facts and information which those genuinely inquiring minds have some capacity to respond.”
Hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, a process used in the CSG industry to split rock seams and extract methane, was banned in Queensland in October last year, with many green groups and farmers demanding a moratorium on CSG activities.
Mr King took a swipe at anti-CSG campaigners and questioned the amount of resources being used by the Greens party.
“How much are they spending on trying to promote information, or perceptions which are contrary to the facts,” he said.
“Remaining silent isn’t helpful. We’ve got to keep making that information available to people.”
Shareholders approved Mr King’s remuneration package, which includes short-term cash incentives of between $1.7 million and $2.9 million on top of his $2.4 million annual base salary.
Mr King said the structure of the company’s remuneration was “appropriate”.
“The remuneration I would acknowledge is beyond what most people think is reasonable,” he said.
“There will be quite a bit more focus on remuneration because you have a new regulatory regime in place.”
Origin Energy shares closed 54 cents, or 3.84 per cent higher, at $14.59.
