The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) officially announced that accepted Equinor’s environment plan for drilling in the Great Australian Bight. This is the second exploration approval that Equinor receives, as it needs two more approvals in order to start the operations.
Equinor had submitted the environment plan for the drilling of the of the Stromlo-1 exploration located in the Great Australian Bight in April 2019.
About one month ago, on 12 November, the Australian NOPSEMA issued a notice to Equinor requiring them to modify and resubmit its environment plan, as they had about 21 days deadline to respond to this request and provide them more details for the exploration.
In light of the situation, on 29 November, Equinor responded to NOPSEMA’s request, as it has re-submitted the environment plan. Early of December NOPSEMA in accordance with the Environment Regulations, resumed its assessment and today approved the plan.
NOPSEMA has imposed stringent conditions on its approval to ensure a high level of protection to the environment, in recognition of the region’s unique values and sensitivities. In the event Equinor secures all approvals, it will be subject to NOPSEMA’s inspection and compliance regime. Failure to comply with the environment plan will result in enforcement action.
…NOPSEMA further noted.
For the records, there are still two more approvals left, as this is the second one. The first one was granted back in 2011 from the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator and the Ministerial Joint Authority.
According to Equinor’s plan, the drilling operations will start between October and May, during the three years validity period from 2020 to 2022, as among June to September there will be no drilling activity.
As for the duration of the drilling project of the Stromlo-1 well, is estimated to last about 2 months, with the drilling scheduled to start in late 2020.
Concluding, Equinor’s well project is based in the Ceduna sub-basin, off southern Australia, while the well is located about 400km southwest of Ceduna and 476 km west of Port Lincoln and in a water depth of approximately 2240 meters.
