Macquarie is a critical financial backer of what could be Australia’s next biggest gas development in the heart of Australia’s Northern Territory, the Beetaloo Basin. This directly contradicts the bank’s green credentials and violates its commitments to the goals of the Paris Agreement.
On 29 September, Macquarie took part in a new $180 million deal for Tamboran Resources to develop its Shenandoah South pilot gas fracking project in Beetaloo. This is Macquarie’s third Beetaloo gas fracking deal in less than 12 months, and comes just weeks after the financial institution was hammered at its AGM for its outrageous support for fossil fuel expansion.
Take action!
Email Macquarie’s CEO – Don’t give the Beetaloo frackers another cent!
This email will be sent directly to Macquarie’s CEO, Shemara Wikramanayake. You can edit the email, but we ask that you please be civil in your correspondence. The concerns we are raising with the CEO are legitimate and serious, requiring urgent attention by the bank. This should not be a moment to abuse or ridicule the CEO, such actions would not be in service of our aims and would not align with Market Forces’ values. Thank you for taking action!
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that emissions from existing fossil fuel infrastructure would exceed the carbon budget remaining to limit warming to 1.5°C, while the International Institute for Sustainable Development concludes that achieving net zero by 2050 allows no new coal mines or oil and gas fields. The world urgently needs to wind down fossil fuel production to avoid catastrophic warming – we cannot keep sanctioning new or expanded projects that will only make the problem worse.
As a new gas field, Beetaloo is not compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5°C in line with the Paris Agreement. If Beetaloo proceeds at full scale, as the gas companies intend, Beetaloo would become one of Australia’s largest and highest emitting gas fields, operating into the 2070s. Burning the gas from this full-scale Beetaloo would produce an estimated 1.1 billion tonnes of CO₂-equivalent, equal to Australia’s largest coal plant operating for more than 83 years.
Despite Macquarie’s green reputation and public support for combatting climate change, Macquarie is financing both major Beetaloo gas fracking developers, Tamboran Resources and Beetaloo Energy Australia (formerly Empire Energy).
Macquarie doesn’t just have one horse in the race to commercialise Beetaloo – Macquarie is betting on Beetaloo gas.
As well as the recent $180 million deal, Macquarie provided a $35 million loan to Tamboran Resources in December 2024 to “support [Tamborans’s] ongoing development activities,” all of which are focused on exploiting Beetaloo gas.
This loan itself came only weeks after Macquarie had pulled together a $65 million financing package for Beetaloo Energy’s gas fracking operations – a deal that was worth over one third of the value of the entire company. Macquarie has been financing Beetaloo Energy for the past 15 years.
At Macquarie’s AGM in July, more than 10,000 Australians, Macquarie investors holding over $17 billion in company shares, and dozens of protesters picketing the meeting had one message for Macquarie:
Don’t give the Beetaloo frackers another cent!
This message has clearly not sunk in yet.
A grotesque move like this calls for a direct response from the person who calls the shots. As CEO, Shemara Wikramanayake has the power to shut Macquarie’s door to the gas frackers for good. In fact, her “green” reputation depends on it.
In 2023 Shemara Wikramanayake made TIME Magazine’s TIME100 Climate list, described as a climate “Titan”, leading Macquarie “where she works to prioritize green finance.”
“There’s just a lot of change we need to do to stop our planet from burning.”
– Shemara Wikramanayake, November 2022
One change Macquarie must make to “stop our planet from burning” is to quit pumping millions of dollars into what could be the biggest gas development in Australia’s history.
Send a message directly to the CEO and tell her that Macquarie needs to live up to its climate commitments.