Have no doubt about it: environmental activists scored another big win with news that Victoria’s new state government will not consider lifting a ban on all onshore drilling – conventional and unconventional – for another 12 to 18 months.

Assuming the government gives the go-ahead in mid-2016 and doesn’t wilt in the countdown to the next state election, petroleum exploration onshore Victoria will have been paralysed for a total of four years.

The activists may not have reached their end game, which many activist groups will tell you unashamedly is a permanent end to all fossil fuel production. But by stopping exploration long enough in enough places, they could get frighteningly close.

NSW is already off limits, and things look set to get much worse.

AGL’s announcement this week that it had detected BTEX chemicals in flowback water at the Waukivory pilot project in the Gloucester Basin is a gift from the gods for the environmental movement.

The way AGL is going about it is not helping, either.

To the average punter, BTEX sounds like a sinister poison from a James Bond movie.

The truth is far more pedestrian. BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene) is everywhere. It occurs naturally with coal seams and petroleum accumulations, and is present in petrol and industrial solvents. It is pumped by motor vehicles into the atmosphere in mind-boggling quantities.

Early in the US shale gas revolution, some fraccing operators added diesel to fraccing fluids to lubricate the proppants. This is how BTEX made it into the headlines why it has a public profile as an evil invention of the shale gas industry.

A Griffith University fact sheet in 2010 cited reports that uncontaminated drinking water could contain BTEX chemicals of up to 54 parts per billion.

This matches up well with AGL’s statements this week that groundwater in the Waukivory project area tested at 30 to 60pbb before the pilot project began.

Four of the five samples of flowback water that have caused so much outrage from activists had BTEX concentrations in the range of 12 to 70pbb – basically indiscernible from the background levels and ordinary drinking water.

A fifth sample had a concentration of 555pbb. It is a strange outlier, and no doubt one of main lines of enquiry by AGL’s team is whether it was due to contamination somewhere in the sampling process.

But even at 555pbb, the level of BTEX in the flowback water is not an environmental disaster and reason for AGL’s exploration licence to be revoked, as activists have insisted.

The average motorist probably inhales more BTEX every time he or she fills their tank.

It is easy to understand AGL’s super-cautious approach in reporting the BTEX sample results and voluntarily suspending production. It is a responsible company and does not want to leave any risk of being seen as otherwise.

But without a big effort to un-demonise BTEX and provide some context, the company looks like it might have a disaster on its hands.

The activists will fan relentlessly the fire lit by AGL this week. If they succeed in convincing the public and weak political leaders that Waukivory has dangerous levels of BTEX and must be closed for good, there could be huge consequences for unconventional gas right across the country, not just in NSW.

Every project will have concentrations of BTEX, and they could all be stopped by a repeat of the scare campaigns, pseudo-science and hysteria.

How can industry turn this around?

We can’t rely on political leaders to care about facts, despite all their blathering about setting up enquiries to look at the science. That’s just a cover for doing nothing.

And don’t expect them to care either about factories closing down and thousands of people losing jobs because there are no affordable supplies of gas.

Manufacturers in Victoria are already saying privately they will be forced to shut down if they can’t secure gas supply, but the government’s response is to extend the ban on onshore drilling.

When closures happen, it will be blamed on exports of gas from Gladstone, or whatever else suits the government’s agenda at the time.

Governments care only about what the majority of voters want, and right now voters want to shutdown anything to do with unconventional gas because they believe it is dangerous to their health.

Industry can only turn this around by winning the information war. This means educating journalists who repeat all the garbage they are told by activists, and re-educating the public.

The industry has a number of organisations that already strive to achieve these goals, with APPEA is at the top of the list. Others include the Norwood Resource, run on a voluntary basis by concerned veterans of the industry, and Energy Information Resource Centre.

They all make fine efforts, but the industry has vastly underestimated the size of the task.

The activist movement that seeks to close down the oil and gas industry has hundreds of staff, thousands of volunteers and multi-million dollar budgets.

It also has a level of commitment that is frightening, with news this week of sabotage to Buru Energy’s Yulleroo-2 well head in the Canning Basin.

Police are still investigating, but what we do know is the enclosure around the well head was broken in to, the well head was damaged and footage was taken by Lock the Gate of a hand-held gas meter showing high readings of methane.

Industry must wake up and overwhelm these threats.

The consequence of failure is to be out of business, as shown in Victoria this week.