Environmentalists Welcome Federal Oil and Gas Decommissioning Roadmap
Friends of the Earth Australia (FoEA) is congratulating Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King for launching a Decommissioning Roadmap Issues Paper today.
FoEA Offshore Fossil Gas Campaigner Jeff Waters said environmentalists should be grateful that the Federal Government is taking action on this crucial issue.
“Minister King should be applauded for recognising the importance, and cost, of this issue, and for undertaking to make industry pay for the removal of almost 60 retiring oil and gas platforms, and hundreds of kilometres of pipelines,” Jeff Waters said.
“Friends of the Earth Australia is very encouraged by the publication of the issues paper and call for submissions on the subject.”
Waters said that Australia should follow world’s best practice in decommissioning and will need to both build dedicated onshore scrapping and recycling yards (with membranes laid under concrete slabs so toxins don’t leak into the environment) and a crucial decommissioning ship to move the platforms and the steel pylons (or ‘jackets’) that support them.
“There is 14 Sydney Harbour Bridges worth of steel that can be recycled from gas platforms and jackets, and that steel can be smelted using renewable energy and then used to create wind turbine towers and bases,” Jeff Waters said.
“And the best way to make industry pay for the recycling yards and a multi-purpose heavy-lifting ship, would be to increase and indefinitely extend the small temporary decommissioning levy now being charged to the oil and gas industry.”
Friends of the Earth Australia is working closely with unions and other environmental organisations to make sure this all happens, and we look forward to further fruitful engagement with the government.
