BP has stood down contractors working on its biofuel plant just weeks before discovering if its adjacent green hydrogen project will win $1 billion of government backing.
The Perth-based National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority is the independent health, safety and environmental regulator for oil and gas in Commonwealth waters.
Offshore regulator NOPSEMA has had enough of BHP's "limited action" and ordered the decommissioning of three fields, adding to the cleanup bill heading towards Woodside shareholders.
Santos wants to approve its $2.8B Dorado oil project off WA in mid-2022 but science and the law will provide hurdles to its 165 million tonnes of carbon pollution.
Two Woodside offshore workers were injured when a 500kg load fell after a lifting appliance with unapproved modifications failed but Woodside reported only one injury to the safety regulator.
A Federal Government review of safety in offshore oil and gas recommends more focus on design changes, diving and mental health and greater input from workers.
Woodside must check if corrosion on fourteen 24-tonne caissons under an offshore platform could cause them to fall onto subsea pipelines with possibly catastrophic results.
Bass Strait partners ExxonMobil and BHP must plug 180 wells, dismantle ten platforms and tackle life-threatening corrosion after intervention by offshore safety regulator NOPSEMA.
Regulator NOPSEMA has wrested control of the schedule for cleaning up Australia's offshore oil and gas fields from tight-fisted operators in a move that may result in an offshore jobs boom later this decade.
The Australian oil and gas industry shed about 3000 jobs in 2020, a far deeper cut than the national average, leaving the offshore safety regulator NOPSEMA worried about lack of maintenance.
While Australia's offshore oil and gas industry grew safety regulator NOPSEMA was troubled by cost-cutting operators, old wells to clean up and dealing with COVID-19.
After 200 tonnes of large pipe fell out of control Inpex and Maersk cannot drill for more gas at Ichthys until they convince the regulator that there will be no potentially fatal incidents.
Woodside's own lack of maintenance means it cannot dispose of an 83m-long structure onshore as planned and will instead sink it to be an artificial reef near the Ningaloo Marine Park
Chevron has another pressure vessel to worry about, this time on the Wheatstone platform, after Gorgon LNG production was slashed this year to fix faulty welds.
