An expert, independent of government and industry, explains how prolonged industrial activity on the Burrup Peninsula in WA endangers an Australian marvel.
If Woodside absorbs BHP's oil & gas assets new laws ensure the massive decommissioning liability falls to one of the companies, not the Australian taxpayer, unlike the Northern Endeavour.
Buying BHP’s Australian oil and gas assets could allow Woodside to escape its lost decade, but its shareholders and Australian taxpayers should count their fingers after the handshake.
Australia's oil and gas industry has lost the fight not to bear the full cost of cleaning up after an oil vessel in the Timor Sea with a bankrupt owner.
For every dollar Woodside saved in 2015 selling the Northern Endeavour, the oil and gas industry may have to pay back threefold after the Federal Government moved to protect ordinary taxpayers from the cost of decommissioning the vessel and oil field.
Investors in Australia's offshore oil and gas industry will find it harder to avoid paying to clean up the assets they profited from under draft legislation released today.
Resources Minister Keith Pitt warned ExxonMobil ceo Darren Woods he would tighten rules for selling offshore oil and gas assets and shortly after the US major canned its Bass Strait exit.
ENI's plan to sell out of Australia and leave offshore decommissioning liabilities to others has struck trouble from regulator NOPSEMA and new Government policy proposals.
The Northern Endeavor mess started with Woodside paying to rid itself of a rusty ageing asset, ended with a $362 million liability for the Government and in between was a regulatory shambles.
If the Federal Government had been alert the financial failure of the Northern Endeavourur would not have been a surprise. Now Canberra has a huge bill for its omission.
