All eyes on Bentley

Protesters say their success at Bentley will pave the way for other NSW communities fighting to keep out the gas industry.

Despite the possibility the Office of Coal Seam Gas suspension placed on Metgasco's licence to drill for conventional and tight sands gas at Rosella late last week could be lifted, Metgasco has opted to cancel drilling rig and other service contracts and cut its losses.

The company pointed to the reallocation of police resources away from guaranteeing "a safe and lawful environment for drilling" as the reason not to proceed "in the near term".

Eight hundred police officers were expected to converge on Bentley this week to allow drilling plants access in the face of an expanding protest.

Since January, opposers of coal seam gas (CSG) have been camped on a beef property near the Rosella site, their numbers swelling to 3000 at times.

They claimed up to 7000 protesters would be at Bentley this week.

The confrontation was avoided at the last minute when the State government announced it had suspended the licence on the grounds Metgasco did not fulfil the condition of undertaking genuine and effective consultation with the community.

Anti-CSG groups are calling for Metgasco's Rosella licence to be permanently cancelled saying the company's idea of community consultation has only ever been to hold lectures.

In a statement to the Australian Stock Exchange on Tuesday Metgasco said it had made an "extensive submission" to the Office of Coal Seam Gas demonstrating it had fully complied with lic-ence conditions relating to community consultation".

The company said the office could not confirm a date for its response so Metgasco had engaged legal counsel.

Separately, Resources and Energy Minister Anthony Roberts said he had written to the Independent Commis-sion Against Corruption following receipt of information concerning shareholdings and interest in Metgasco.

Protest group Gasfields Free Northern Rivers co-ordinator Ian Gaillard said congratulations were pouring in from as far afield as the United Kingdom and Germany.

"The myth NSW is running out of gas needs to be debunked now and forever," he said.

"It has been established there is enough gas in Bass Strait to last the East Coast of Australia indefinitely.

"What has happened here at Bentley is that a community has united and refused to entertain the notion of gasfields across their farming country.

"Other communities can achieve the same result."

The Bentley protest was held on grazing country owned by respected beef producers, the Scarrabelotti family, whose Greenmountain Pastoral Com-pany owns about 1600 hectares on the Richmond River.

Their vacuum-packed beef goes to countries including Japan, North America, Russia and the Middle East.

"We do not want the environmental integrity of that land compromised, especially in a world where our markets are becoming more and more sensitive as to how the food they are buying is produced," managing director David Scarrabelotti said.

"Does the government want to be responsible for the possibility the livestock producers in this area cannot fill out a vendor declaration that satisfies customers' requirements, which are constantly evolving, because of water contamination from a gas field?"

The protest camp is set to be dismantled this week but mining opponents say they'll continue the fight at the controversial Pilliga Forest project and Maules Creek coal mine near Gloucester.

They also said should Metgasco return to Bentley, so too will they.

The Association for Petroleum Production and Exploration said the suspension just days before start of drilling set a damaging precedent for resource development in NSW.