A 40m easement, or right of way zone, needs to be cleared around the entire length of the pipeline for construction, safety and maintenance reasons.

An Arrow spokesman said the company was negotiating with landholders to secure an easement for the pipeline route.

“Arrow won’t own the easement but will hold rights over the land, with negotiated compensation paid to land owners,” he said.

“This planning is associated with the front-end engineering design work Arrow announced last year.”

According to the Gladstone Observer, Arrow’s advertising materials raised the prospect that it could apply to the Queensland Coordinator-General for the pipeline to be declared a private infrastructure facility in the case that easement negotiations with landowners were unsuccessful.

“This would mean the Coordinator-General could compulsorily acquire land interests deemed necessary for the project,” the newspaper reported.

The buried high pressure steel gas pipeline will link up Bowen Basin CSG to a gas hub 22km west of Gladstone, where it will join the proposed Arrow Surat pipeline.

While Arrow has shelved its Curtis Island-based LNG plant building plans, its untapped CSG reserves could still end up being sold to one of the three LNG plants on the island.

WorleyParsons won the front-end engineering and design contract for the Bowen pipeline project last December.

While the pipeline was successfully impact-assessed for a 500km length, it was later reduced to 428km in order to cut costs.

“Refining continues with the FEED process,” the Arrow spokesman told ICN sister publication ENB.