Australia: Large-scale reforms to the resources legislation aimed at streamlining and efficiency

Australia: Large-scale reforms to the resources legislation aimed at streamlining and efficiency by Mark Geritz, Ben Cansdale and Kathryn Warner, August 16 2012, Clayton Utz
Wide-ranging reforms to the resources legislation in Queensland have been proposed by a new Bill, designed to streamline and harmonise procedures for granting, and dealing with, various resource interests. The Mines Legislation (Streamlining) Amendment Bill 2012 was introduced into the Queensland Parliament on 2 August 2012, and provides for some significant reforms to the resources legislation in Queensland. … The Bill also provides important reforms dealing with water produced from coal seam gas (CSG) operations, the compulsory acquisition of land subject to existing resource interests and other miscellaneous changes to the MRA.
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Amendments specific to the P&G Act: Transportation and treatment of “produced water”
The Bill proposes significant reforms to the P&G Act to address concerns that the current legislation does not adequately provide for water pipelines extending across long chains of PLs or “off-tenure”, or centrally processing CSG water produced from multiple tenures. These reforms include:
•    introducing the concept of “produced water”, meaning associated water from a petroleum tenure or CSG water (defined as underground water brought to the surface of the earth in connection with exploring for or producing CSG under a petroleum tenure). Produced water expressly includes treated and untreated CSG water, and concentrated saline water (ie. brine) produced during the treatment of CSG water;
•    allowing the grant of pipeline licences (PPLs) to authorise the construction and operation of pipelines transporting produced water – this is done by amending the definition of “pipeline” in the P&G Act to include one transporting produced water; and
•    authorising a PL holder to process, and construct and operate facilities for the processing and storage of, produced water, whether that water is produced inside or outside of the PL and by the PL holder or not.
Amendments specific to the P&G Act: Incidental activities
The authority of PL holders to carry out “incidental activities” in the area of the PL is to be expanded to include activities that are reasonably necessary for, or incidental to, an authorised activity for another PL or ATP. Incidental activities for ATPs are also to be expanded to include incidental activities for another ATP. These amendments will allow the construction and operation of infrastructure, such as electricity lines and fibre optic cables, across various petroleum tenures. This authority may also apply to cross-border water pipelines, and consequently section 110 is to be amended to no longer apply to water pipelines.