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Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Environment) Regulations 2023
35Notice of decision on environment plan, publication of accepted plan and submission and publication of summary
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35 Notice of decision on environment plan, publication of accepted plan and submission and publication of summary
Notice to titleholder
(1) NOPSEMA must give a titleholder who submitted an environment plan written notice of a decision by NOPSEMA under section 33 to:
(a) accept the environment plan for the activity; or
(b) accept the plan in part for a particular stage of the activity, or subject to limitations or conditions applying to operations for the activity; or
(c) refuse to accept the plan.
Note: For a petroleum activity, NOPSEMA must not accept the environment plan unless NOPSEMA is reasonably satisfied that the titleholder is compliant with subsection 571(2) of the Act in relation to the petroleum activity and the compliance is in a form that is acceptable to NOPSEMA (see section 16 of this instrument).
(2) If the decision is to refuse to accept the plan, or to accept the plan in part for a particular stage of the activity, the notice must set out:
(a) the terms of the decision; and
(b) the reasons for the decision.
(3) If the decision is to accept the plan subject to limitations or conditions, the notice must set out:
(a) the terms of the decision; and
(b) the reasons for the decision; and
(c) the limitations or conditions that are to apply to operations for the activity.
Publication of notice etc.
(4) As soon as practicable after giving the notice of the decision to the titleholder, NOPSEMA must publish on NOPSEMA’s website:
(a) a description of the decision; and
(b) if the decision was to accept the environment plan (in whole or in part)—the plan with the sensitive information part removed; and
(c) if:
(i) the environment plan is a seismic or exploratory drilling environment plan on which one or more comments described in subsection 30(2) were received (whether or not the plan was modified after the comments were made); and
(ii) the decision was to accept the plan (in whole or in part);
a statement by NOPSEMA as to how NOPSEMA took the comments into account in making the decision.
(5) A statement by NOPSEMA for the purposes of paragraph (4)(c) must not include sensitive information relating to the plan from the comments.
Submission of summary of accepted plan
(6) Within 10 days after receiving notice that NOPSEMA has accepted an environment plan (whether in full, in part or subject to limitations or conditions), the titleholder must submit a summary of the accepted plan to NOPSEMA for public disclosure.
(7) The summary:
(a) must include the following material from the environment plan for the activity:
(i) the location of the activity;
(ii) a description of the receiving environment;
(iii) a description of the activity;
(iv) details of environmental impacts and risks of the activity;
(v) a summary of the control measures for the activity;
(vi) a summary of the arrangements for ongoing monitoring of the titleholder’s environmental performance;
(vii) a summary of the response arrangements in the oil pollution emergency plan;
(viii) details of consultation already undertaken, and plans for ongoing consultation;
(ix) details of the titleholder’s nominated liaison for the activity; and
(b) must be to the satisfaction of NOPSEMA.
Publication of summary
(8) As soon as practicable after receiving the summary, NOPSEMA must publish it on NOPSEMA’s website.