Global oil firm eyeing off Otway Basin under investigation from safety regulator

COAST watchers say an application from the world’s largest offshore drilling company to seismically test the Otway Basin should be put on hold after revelations it is under investigation by the Commonwealth’s offshore petroleum safety regulator.

The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) is assessing whether oil services giant Schlumberger complied with its Environment Plan during a three-month 2D mapping search of the area for oil and gas at the start of 2020.

It follows concerns previously raised by the Otway Climate Emergency Action Network (OCEAN) that Schlumberger’s 2020 survey involved sonar blasting over a dump site for chemical and artillery weapons from World War I and World War II.

A NOPSEMA spokesperson said the investigation “is ongoing” but would not offer any further comment on the specifics of the probe.

“It was OCEAN that alerted NOPSEMA to this in fact, in 2020, but we were basically fobbed off at the time because we didn’t have any ‘information pertaining to the event’ or evidence that the dump site was impacted by the blasts,” OCEAN’s Lisa Deppeler said.
“A preposterous request for a small community group… the dump site is out on the edge of the continental shelf.”

Ms Deppeler said she was told at an October meeting between OCEAN and NOPSEMA that “the investigation won’t affect the current application from Schlumberger and TGS”.

Schlumberger and energy data company TGS have an application with the federal government’s offshore petroleum title’s office to 3D map 7.7 million hectares of ocean floor between Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia.

Surfers For Climate said it would enable explosive underwater airgun blasts of between 200-256 decibels fired every 3-10 seconds for 24 hours continuously for up to 200 days a year, over a five-year period.

“This plan will disrupt migratory patterns of the endangered southern right whale… food sources for species like the southern rock lobster and southern bluefin tuna,” the group’s Linley Hurrell said.

Markus Nolle from the Apollo Bay Fishermen’s Cooperative said he was shocked by the plan.

“It is outrageous… the application should be put on hold until the investigation is complete, and if this investigation is not about the CWA (chemical warfare agents) site, then there needs to be another investigation into that incident,” he said.

The Colac Otway Shire has formally opposed the latest seismic test survey, as have First Nations groups and the Greens.

Greens Senator Peter Whish-Wilson campaigned on the issue in Torquay last week, and described NOPSEMA’s audit as “highly unusual” but did not expect it to be finalised any time soon.

“The investigation may go for some years… I think maybe they’ll just delay it, get through the next election.

“They know the tide of public opinion is running against these things.”