Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

That's alright; you don't know the answer. If you could get it for me, I would be grateful. You're in here steering through the Senate and this parliament legislation that's going to facilitate new oil and gas fields by using previously depleted oil and gas fields to potentially store carbon dioxide to pump these emissions back into the ground, even though there's no evidence this works anywhere around the world on a commercial scale.

What's really triggered my interest in this bill is not just that this is very likely to be greenwashing for the oil and gas industry to help them get up new projects; right around this nation, companies that have been operating in the ocean, oil and gas fields have significant liabilities under the NOPSEMA decommissioning strategy and compliance plan. The Wilderness Society estimates up to $60 billion in liabilities. Through questioning from the Greens in Senate estimates over recent years and, may I say, working with amazing stakeholders like The Wilderness Society and others who care about our oceans—Greenpeace have been very prominent in this campaign as well—we have managed to get Woodside Petroleum and some other companies to remove some infrastructure from the ocean that's been sitting there rusting. The teaser turret is a good example; that was only removed in recent months, and NOPSEMA confirmed that. We are talking about tens of billions of dollars of liabilities out there for oil and gas companies sitting on their balance sheet, I would expect. These are not insignificant amounts of money, even for wealthy, highly profitable oil and gas companies that pay very little tax in this country. They are some of the most profitable companies on the planet, especially in times of higher oil prices following the war in Ukraine and the conflict in the Middle East. But here we have these liabilities.

Minister, can I ask you to take this on notice because I'm not sure if you'll have the information today. If you go to NOPSEMA's website, where they talk about their decommissioning strategy plan and performance, they have a decommissioning research strategy. Basically, they supply a flowchart that's pretty simple to follow and they have targets for decommissioning. By 2021 they were hoping that all oil and gas companies with depleted fields in Australia, the titleholders of those fields, would have appropriate plans for decommissioning and be completing these in a timely manner. Titleholders are aware of their decommissioning requirements—so NOPSEMA has been working with oil and gas companies to make sure they are aware of these requirements, and that's why they should be on their balance sheets. But by the end of this year—we're nearly there—coincidentally they need to have supplied plans for the abandonment of their wells and these oilfields. Decommissioning plans are supposed to be in place for non-operating structures, equipment and property which are associated with depleted oil and gas fields. Moored or tethered buoyant infrastructure needs to be removed within 12 months of ceasing operations. So, once these plans are given to NOPSEMA this year, they have 12 months to go out there and spend the money to remove this technology and this infrastructure.

Then by 2025 wells that were plugged and closed within three years of permanently ceasing production need all structural equipment and property to be removed.

For the domestic act offshore oil and gas carbon capture and storage, which is not dealt with in this bill, unless those same structures are going to be used to also apply for licences to import carbon dioxide, we have a situation here where companies can avoid their liability by applying for a licence to use these subsidies to use these subsea structures to sequester carbon. Even if they apply for a licence and they don't manage to get some dirty CO2 from Japan, Korea, the Philippines, the Timor Sea or wherever it happens, we have a situation where—and I'm very concerned about this for the domestic legislation as well—this is actually a de facto strategy to avoid their liabilities. How convenient that we are dealing with this legislation just a few months out from when they are supposed to be providing the final details to NOPSEMA. Minister, can you answer this question today, and if you can't please take it on notice: how many of these project that are applying to import carbon dioxide—and if you know domestically how many of the seven areas that have now been awarded to oil and gas companies to pursue carbon capture and storage—are using depleted oilfields that had liabilities under these decommissioning plans?