Commencement of OPGGS amendments

On 28 April 2020 the OPGGS (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act 2019, the OPGGS (Regulatory Levies) Amendment Act 2019 and the OPGGS Legislation Amendment (Greenhouse Gas Storage) Regulations 2020 will come into force.

The key amendments will:

• Transfer regulatory oversight of greenhouse gas wells and environmental management from the responsible Commonwealth Minister to NOPSEMA.
• Enable NOPSEMA to undertake inspections without a warrant to monitor compliance by titleholders with well integrity obligations under the OPGGS Act and regulations.
• Impose well activity levies on submission of five-yearly revisions of well operations management plans (WOMP) to reflect previous changes to well-related regulations to require five-yearly WOMP revisions, rather than submissions of a new WOMP every five years.
• Future proof references to regulations in the OPGGS Act and the Levies Act

The legislative and regulatory amendments and associated explanatory materials are available on the Federal Register of Legislation website at:

• Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Legislation Amendment (Greenhouse Gas Storage) Regulations 2020
• Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Regulatory Levies) Amendment Bill 2019
• Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2019

Categories:

• environmental management