The release of the Graeme Samuel review of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC) assessing Australia’s environmental regulatory framework has been welcomed by the oil and gas industry.

The review makes several recommendations to the Australian Government around the reform and modernisation of Australia’s environmental legislative framework.

The focus on improving environmental, heritage and biodiversity conservation outcomes, while delivering greater regulatory efficiency to business and the community, is particularly supported by APPEA and its members.

APPEA Chief Executive Andrew McConville said the sector welcomed the EPBC Act review’s final recommendations that focus on reducing the existing regulatory burden for approvals and recommends ways of streamlining environmental approval processes without lowering environmental protections.

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Australia’s geoscientists benefitted from a sharp increase in employment opportunities in the final quarter of 2020 according to the latest AIG Australian geoscientist employment survey.

Unemployment amongst professional geoscientists (geologists, geophysicists and allied Earth scientists) recommenced a downward trend after improvement in employment prospects stalled throughout the previous three quarters of the year.

AIG President, Mr Andrew Waltho, welcomed the results.  “It’s great to see job prospects for Australian geoscientists ending what had been a tentative 2020, on such a positive note,” he said.

Nationally, between the beginning of October and end of December 2020, geoscientist unemployment fell sharply from 10.6% to 4.5%, the fourth-lowest rate recorded since the survey series commenced in June 2009 and the lowest rate recorded since June 2012, at the height of the resources boom.

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Total has withdrawn from the American Petroleum Institute (API), citing differences over API’s position on climate change.

The French energy giant said this followed a detailed analysis of API’s climate change position, whereafter it decided not to renew its membership for 2021.

Total said it assesses all industry associations it is a member of each year to ensure they are aligned with the group’s climate change position.

The six key points it uses to test this alignment are:

Total said that following the 2019 and 2020 reviews, API's positions were assessed as "partially aligned" with those of the Group.

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Chevron has announced a Series C investment in San Jose-based Blue Planet Systems Corporation, a start-up that manufactures and develops carbonate aggregates and carbon capture technology intended to reduce the carbon intensity of industrial operations.

The San Ramon headquartered company said: “Chevron Technology Ventures’ ongoing investment in carbon capture and utilization technologies supports Chevron’s focus on a diverse portfolio of lower-carbon solutions."

In connection with its investment, Chevron and Blue Planet also executed a letter of intent to collaborate on potential pilot projects and commercial development in key geographies, with the goal of jointly advancing lower-carbon opportunities.

Blue Planet creates carbonate-based building aggregate made from flue gas-captured CO2.

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EnergyQuest estimates that Australia exported a record 78.0 Mt of LNG in 2020, up from 77.5 Mt in 2019. This is a good result given the disruptions to Gorgon, the fact that Prelude hadn’t produced since early February, issues seen at Wheatstone with reduced production, and the COVID-19 destruction of LNG demand, particularly early in the year.

Australian production was above Qatar nameplate capacity of 77 Mtpa. (The precise level of Qatar LNG exports is uncertain because Qatar does not disclose its actual LNG export volumes.)

The Australian projects operated at 89% of operation nameplate capacity of 87.8 Mtpa.

Western Australian production was up by 5% on 2019 to 43.7 Mt, but Northern Territory again proved the standout with production up by 11% on 2019 to 11.7 Mt.

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