A review will be conducted into the commercial value of south east Australian offshore petroleum titles.

Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan said today he has asked the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator (NOPTA) to conduct the review.

“The Coalition Government is working to promote development of new energy supplies for south-eastern Australia,” Minister Canavan said.

“The Australian Government is committed to developing offshore petroleum resources as early as possible.

“The key to improved domestic gas supplies and lower prices is increasing gas production and supply competition.

“This could come from bringing offshore deposits in south-east Australia into a production licence as well as adopting the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s call for state governments to avoid blanket moratoriums of onshore gas developments. 

“Re-evaluating the commercial viability of retention leases in the Victorian and Tasmanian offshore areas will determine if there are resources that could be brought into production.”

Minister Canavan said that, if the review determines there are commercially viable resources, the power exists to revoke the retention lease.

“In that case, the titleholder can then be required to apply for a production licence or to surrender the area, in which case it will become vacant acreage and be available for re-release.

“This review is complementary to the Australian Government’s 2017 Offshore South East Australia Future Gas Supply study, which provided detailed analysis of the volumes of gas within offshore south east Australian basins for potential future input into the east coast domestic gas market.”