<
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/29/abandoning-bass-strait-oil-and-gas-structures-would-breach-international-law-expert-warns>
"An international law expert has warned that abandoning oil and gas
infrastructure in Bass Strait would breach Australia’s obligations under
international law, if ExxonMobil pursues this plan in decommissioning its
Gippsland offshore project.
Prof Donald Rothwell, who specialises in international law at the Australian
National University, said Bass Strait was used for international navigation and
had special status under the UN convention on the law of the sea and related
International Maritime Organisation guidelines.
As a party to the Unclos, Australia was obliged to remove all structures from
Bass Strait when they were no longer in use, he said.
Unclos and related IMO guidelines were “unambiguously clear”, Rothwell said:
structures in an international strait within Australia’s exclusive economic
zone couldn’t be left “in situ”. “There’s actually an obligation to remove
those structures,” he said.
When decommissioning its 50-year-old fossil fuel infrastructure in the
Gippsland basin, located up to 77km off Victoria’s Gippsland coast, ExxonMobil
proposed to leave steel structures below depths of 55m “in place on the
seabed”.
In a September update, the company said lower sections of steel structures in
deep water would remain, with removal “part of a future decommissioning
campaign, unless an alternative end state is proposed and accepted by the
regulator”.
The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority
said full removal was “the base case for decommissioning” unless it was
satisfied that environmental risks and impacts could be reduced “to as low as
reasonably practicable and an acceptable level” in an accepted environment
plan.
ExxonMobil plans to submit its plan in early 2025."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
