Petroleum, Geothermal Energy and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Hydraulic Fracturing) Regulations 2017

The direct prohibition is framed around “a person” who carries out hydraulic fracturing in the course of a petroleum operation under a petroleum authority. That wording is not limited on its face to the authority holder. It may therefore be relevant to people or entities involved in carrying out the operation, although the supplied text does not explain how responsibility is attributed among a permit holder, operator, contractor, employee or other participant.

Petroleum operators and authority holders are affected by the location-based restrictions. Before assessing a proposed fracturing operation under these regulations, the relevant area must be classified. If it falls within one of regulation 4’s listed areas, regulation 4 states an ongoing prohibition. If it is not a listed area, the regulation 5 moratorium may apply unless it is an “existing petroleum authority area” under regulation 3A. The dates and continuity of petroleum authorities can therefore affect which restriction applies.

The provisions also matter to people responsible for geographic, title and operational records. The restricted locations include defined planning regions, a mapped ban area, national parks, drinking-water source areas and a heritage category linked to the West Kimberley National Heritage place. The coordinate description in Schedule 1 uses the Geocentric Datum of Australia 1994. Its accompanying map is stated to be for information purposes only. Schedule 2’s map is also for information purposes only.

The regulations’ operative provisions concern hydraulic fracturing within petroleum operations under petroleum authorities. Although the instrument’s title refers to petroleum, geothermal energy and greenhouse gas storage legislation, the supplied provisions do not set out equivalent fracturing restrictions for geothermal or greenhouse gas storage operations as such. The source does not identify any other affected groups, consultation rights, compensation arrangements or exemptions.

Regulation 4 states the principal location-specific duty: a person must not carry out hydraulic fracturing, in the course of a petroleum operation under a petroleum authority, in any of eight categories of area. These are the metropolitan region, Peel region, South West region, Dampier Peninsula hydraulic fracturing ban area, a national park, a public drinking water source area, an area within 2 km of a public drinking water source area, and an iconic natural heritage place. The text does not provide an approval or exception mechanism within regulation 4.

Regulation 5(2) separately prohibits the same activity in a moratorium area during the moratorium period. Under regulation 3, that period begins on 9 December 2017 and ends when regulation 5 is repealed. The moratorium-area definition excludes existing petroleum authority areas and all areas referred to in regulation 4. As a result, the provisions distinguish areas subject to the regulation 4 prohibition from other areas caught by the moratorium, while excluding qualifying continuous-authority areas from the moratorium definition.

The principal right-like effect apparent from the text is that regulation 5’s moratorium does not extend to an area meeting the regulation 3A existing-authority test. That is a boundary of the moratorium, not an express permission to fracture: the regulation 4 prohibitions remain separately relevant, and other legal requirements are not described in this extract. Nor does the text say that holding a petroleum authority overrides either prohibition.

The extract does not provide a process to seek consent, a review or appeal right, a notification requirement, a reporting duty, or a defence. Those matters should not be inferred from silence in this excerpt, which contains only the specified regulations and not the full parent Act or other potentially relevant instruments.

Regulation 4 provides a penalty of $10,000 “for each day on which the offence occurs” for carrying out hydraulic fracturing in any of its listed areas. Regulation 5(2) provides the same daily penalty for carrying out hydraulic fracturing in a moratorium area during the moratorium period. The text specifies a daily amount, not a single fixed maximum for an operation spanning multiple days. It does not state how a court would count days, whether multiple people could each be liable for the same conduct, or how separate offences would be treated.

Both provisions apply to a person carrying out the activity in the course of a petroleum operation under a petroleum authority. The defined activity and geographic location are therefore central elements when reading the stated prohibitions. The supplied text does not set out a separate penalty for holding an authority, failing to map an area, or breaching a reporting obligation.

The regulations provide no enforcement procedure in the extract. They do not identify an investigating agency, specify prosecution time limits, describe evidentiary rules, or set out defences, infringement notices, injunctions or licence consequences. Nor do they explain whether any other sanctions may be available under the Act or other laws. Those questions cannot be answered from the cited text alone.

For practical analysis, the daily-penalty formulation means that the timing and duration of alleged conduct may matter, alongside its location and whether it falls within the defined petroleum-operation context. The amount is stated in the regulation itself; the extract provides no mechanism for adjusting it and no stated penalty ceiling. Any conclusion about enforcement exposure in a particular matter would require the applicable facts and the relevant procedural and statutory material, which this text does not reproduce.

The regulations depend on several other laws for defined terms and geographic boundaries. “Metropolitan region”, “Peel region” and “South West region” take their meanings from the Planning and Development Act 2005, respectively section 4(1) and Schedule 4 items 6 and 8 as specified in regulation 3. The supplied text identifies those references but does not reproduce the boundaries or criteria in that Act.

“National park” is defined by reference to section 3 of the Conservation and Land Management Act 1984. “Public drinking water source area” includes catchment areas or water reserves constituted under section 9(1) of the Country Areas Water Supply Act 1947, catchment areas or water reserves constituted under section 13 of the Metropolitan Water Supply, Sewerage, and Drainage Act 1909, and Underground Water Pollution Control Areas constituted under section 57A of that 1909 Act. The 2 km buffer in regulation 4(g) is measured from a public drinking water source area, so the underlying boundary is material.

The heritage definition refers to the West Kimberley National Heritage place, which regulation 3 identifies by reference to the National Heritage List under section 324C(1) of the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 and a 2011 Gazette instrument. However, an “iconic natural heritage place” under these regulations must also have been an existing petroleum authority area on the specified 2021 commencement date.

The petroleum authority definition refers to Part 3 Divisions 2, 2A or 3 of the Western Australian Act. The extract does not reproduce those provisions or explain the separate conditions for granting or maintaining an authority. These references show how the regulations rely on other instruments for scope and location, but the supplied text is not enough to describe those laws’ broader operation or resolve any boundary question.

The compilation table records the original Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Resources (Hydraulic Fracturing) Regulations 2017, published on 8 December 2017. Regulations 1 and 2 commenced on that date, and the remaining regulations commenced on 9 December 2017. Regulation 2 states that general commencement structure. The compilation’s “Other notes” says the instrument is now known by its current title, with the citation changed as noted under regulation 1.

The 2019 amendment regulations were published on 6 September 2019. Regulations 1 and 2 of that amending instrument commenced on 6 September, and its other regulations commenced on 7 September. The compilation notes amendments to regulations 3, 4 and 5, insertion of regulation 3A, and insertion of Schedule 1’s Dampier Peninsula ban-area description and information map. Regulation 3A established the continuing-authority test tied to 26 November 2018.

The 2021 amendment regulations were published on 24 September 2021, with the substantive amendments commencing on 25 September. The notes identify amendments to regulations 3 and 4 and insertion of Schedule 2, the map of iconic natural heritage places. The current regulation 3 definition ties an iconic natural heritage place to an existing petroleum authority area at the commencement of regulation 4 of those 2021 amendment regulations.

The compilation table also records Part 4 of the Mines and Petroleum Regulations Amendment Regulations 2026, published on 27 May 2026 and commencing on 28 May 2026. The supplied text specifically marks regulations 1 and 3 as amended in 2026, with the citation change under regulation 1 and a regulation 3 amendment note. The extract does not explain the policy reasons for any amendment or provide a fuller amendment history than these entries.

The supplied legislation compilation contains no cases, court decisions, tribunal decisions or litigation summaries concerning these regulations. It therefore does not establish whether regulation 4 or 5 has been considered by a court, how “each day on which the offence occurs” has been interpreted, or how any dispute about a mapped boundary has been resolved. No case names can be reported from this source.

The text does, however, identify questions that could arise in a dispute without answering them. These include whether the activity meets the regulation 3 definition of hydraulic fracturing, whether it was carried out in the course of a petroleum operation under a petroleum authority, and whether the location falls within a regulation 4 area or the regulation 5 moratorium area. For regulation 5, an additional issue may be whether the area satisfied each continuity requirement in regulation 3A, including whether an authority remained in force throughout the period after 26 November 2018.

Geographic questions may depend on material outside the supplied text. The Schedule 1 area is described by coordinates and a coastline boundary, with coordinates referenced to GDA94; its map is expressly for information purposes only. The Schedule 2 map is likewise informational. Other boundaries depend on definitions or instruments incorporated by reference, including drinking-water source areas and national parks.

The compilation does not identify enforcement authorities, pleadings, evidentiary records, court findings or outcomes. It also does not report challenges to the validity of the regulations or disputes about their interaction with the parent Act. This section is therefore limited to what can be established from the source: the regulations state the prohibitions and penalties, but the supplied material gives no litigation history with which to describe their judicial application.

The first interpretive point is that the two controls are not identical. Regulation 4 prohibits fracturing in its listed areas, while regulation 5(2) applies to a “moratorium area”, which regulation 3 defines by excluding both existing petroleum authority areas and areas referred to in regulation 4. It would be inaccurate to treat every area outside regulation 4 as automatically outside the moratorium.

The existing-authority exclusion depends on a cumulative continuity test. An area must have had an authority in force on 26 November 2018, must have had one continuously since then, and must currently have one in force. Regulation 3A(2) says that different authorities may have covered the area at different times. A gap in authority is therefore potentially significant under the text, while a change from one authority to another is not necessarily disqualifying if authority remained continuously in force.

The moratorium period has no calendar end date in the definition. It ends on the day regulation 5 is repealed. Regulation 5(1) is marked deleted, but regulation 5(2) remains in the supplied text. The deletion of subregulation (1) should not be mistaken for repeal of regulation 5 as a whole.

The geographic schedules also need careful handling. Schedule 1’s coordinates and coastline description define the Dampier Peninsula ban area, while its map is “for information purposes only”. Schedule 2’s map is similarly informational, and the heritage definition includes a historic authority-area condition. Finally, the $10,000 penalty is expressed per day, not as a single amount per operation. The extract does not specify how overlapping prohibitions, multiple participants or the counting of days would be dealt with.

The regulations do not set out a compliance programme, prescribed records, notification process or application procedure. A source-based compliance analysis can nevertheless be organised around the elements the provisions actually use. First, identify whether the proposed activity is hydraulic fracturing as defined in regulation 3, including the stated method and purpose. Second, determine whether it is being carried out in the course of a petroleum operation under a petroleum authority, as required by regulations 4 and 5(2).

The next step in the analysis is geographic. Check whether the proposed location falls within any regulation 4 category: the metropolitan, Peel or South West region; the Dampier Peninsula ban area; a national park; a public drinking water source area or the 2 km surrounding area; or an iconic natural heritage place. The relevant definitions and boundaries may depend on the statutes and instruments cited in regulation 3, as well as the coordinate description in Schedule 1.

If the area is not within a regulation 4 category, regulation 3’s moratorium-area definition makes the existing-authority test important. That test calls for evidence about the authority in force on 26 November 2018, continuity thereafter, and whether an authority is currently in force. The text allows different authorities to have applied at different times, provided the area-level continuity condition is met.

A useful working record, without implying any statutory recordkeeping duty, could separate the activity description, authority details, location and boundary materials, and relevant dates. The source does not specify which evidence is legally sufficient or resolve mapping disputes. It also does not state that satisfying this geographic and authority analysis removes obligations under other laws. This is general legal information, not legal advice; Zoe can make mistakes. Before acting on this, relying on it, or using any draft, have a qualified Australian lawyer check it.