Otways seismic test plan kept quiet

AN OTWAYS environmental group says a plan to conduct the region’s largest 3D seismic testing survey in coastal waters has been kept so quiet the electorate’s federal member did not know about it.

Members of the Otway Climate Emergency Action Network (OCEAN) met with Wannon federal member Dan Tehan at Apollo Bay last week to brief him about a proposal from international geophysical specialists TGS and Schlumberger.

The project outlines the companies’ intentions to produce a 3D map of 7.7 million hectares of ocean floor in the Otway Basin for prospective fossil fuel producers in Commonwealth waters offshore from Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia.

OCEAN’s Lisa Deppeler said the proposal was unusual because it was not being conducted by a company with exploration rights over a specific title area.

“This is a Special Prospectors Authority (SPA), initiated by TGS and Schlumberger… it doesn’t have to have a title.

“Therefore it doesn’t have control from a joint authority that normally has control over titles.”

Ordinarily, a company must first be granted a permit over an oil and gas title area before it can conduct exploration testing.

If a permit is granted by the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator, a joint authority is established with responsibilities such as decisions relating to bids for the areas; the power to grant or refuse a petroleum title; variation of title conditions; and the power to suspend or extend title terms.

Groups including OCEAN, the Apollo Bay fisherman’s co-operative and the Gunditjmara-led Southern Ocean Protection Embassy Collective have all expressed alarm that the TGS and Schlumberger proposal for an SPA circumvents this process.

“It’s basically the exploration company who decides who should be consulted, and even then they are only required to put it out in one local newspaper,” Ms Depeller said.

“It’ll be a done deal and the amount of damage that will be done will be unknown.

“There’s plenty of evidence suggesting it damages plankton, tuna and rock lobster.

“I’m not surprised Dan Tehan didn’t know about it – the only reason we found out about it was because we have friends in the fishing industry.

“He said he would look into it, wasn’t aware of it, could we send him some information and that he would get back to us.”