Voice of Real Australia is a regular newsletter from ACM, which has journalists in every state and territory. Sign up here to get it by email, or here to forward it to a friend. Today's was written by ACM national agriculture reporter Chris McLennan.
The Minister's press release came out on April Fool's Day, perhaps that's why no-one paid much attention.
The sums involved seemed too ridiculous to be true, surely.
We don't pay enough attention to the weird goings on in northern Australia.
Perhaps $325 million of public money might elevate the heart rate a bit.
This story involves a leaky boat called Northern Endeavour, and is a lesson in why the oil industry cannot be left to their own devices.
The first mistake was allowing the ship to be named after one of Australia's icons, Captain Cook's HMS Endeavour.
The Northern Endeavour is simply a rust bucket, well past its use-by date.
The former oil and gas production vessel has long been a floating time bomb as far as the marine environment is concerned.
That's why it's our problem, a worry for the Australian people, after its former owners Northern Oil and Gas Australia went into liquidation in 2020.
Even though there's some court action underway with NOGA's creditors trying to sort out ownership, taxpayers are carrying the can at the moment.
The Northern Endeavour simply could not be allowed to bob on its tether for much longer, in case something serious happened.
The 274 metre long "production facility" has been permanently moored between the Laminaria and Corallina oil fields, not that many of us know where that is.
Commercial production of these fields began in 1999 through a joint venture of Woodside Energy Ltd and Talisman Oil & Gas Pty Ltd.
Woodside owned and operated the Northern Endeavour and announced its intention to stop production from the vessel in 2016 and move to decommissioning the fields soon afterwards.
Sensing an opportunity, NOGA came into being in 2015.
NOGA "felt the region had potential for further oil and gas development" and in 2015 entered into a sales agreement with Woodside and Talisman.
This resulted in Talisman acquiring both the Northern Endeavour and Woodside's interest in the oil fields, and NOGA then bought 100 per cent of Talisman.
It wasn't long before the authorities began to worry about the corroded state of the Northern Endeavour and the company's ability to respond to any emergency, like an oil spill.
The Northern Endeavour stopped producing oil in 2019.
But even 550 kilometres distant from Darwin in the Timor Sea, it is still moored in Australian waters.
For a long time it looked like the taxpayer was going have to fund the decommissioning of the ageing Northern Endeavour and plug up the holes in the oilfield.
That's a lot of money to fix up someone else's mistake.
To the credit of the federal government, they rushed through laws during their final days of this Parliament to force the oil industry to pay.
Offshore oil and gas operators have to hand over 48 cents per barrel of any oil and gas they extract, backdated to July last year until the money is paid back.
Resources and Water Minister Keith Pitt said a $325 million contract has been signed with Petrofac Facilities Management Limited to start the decommissioning.
Northern Endeavour will be disconnected from its subsea equipment and any operating wells will be temporarily suspended.
Decommissioning and remediation will likely take several years.
"Decommissioning the Northern Endeavour is a unique and unprecedented responsibility for the Commonwealth after its owners went into liquidation," Mr Pitt said.
The Minister has also said the government's involvement "sends a strong signal to the world that Australia will maintain its global reputation as a safe, reliable and responsible country for offshore oil and gas development".
The rust bucket will then have to be towed to shore and presumably sold for scrap.
A sad end for any workhorse of the seas, but well overdue.
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