Environmental Guidelines

Under the environment protection part of the Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Act licensees need to ensure that their activities are properly managed to reduce environmental damage as far as reasonably practicable.

Petroleum or geothermal activity can only be conducted if it is covered by an approved statement of environmental objectives (SEO) for the region and land system within which it will be carried out.

Example environmental procedures for seismic ops in the Cooper Basin     (.PDF) 188KB
The 'Example environmental procedures for seismic operations in the Cooper and Eromanga basins, South Australia' relates to the above SEO and provides example procedures which may achieve the environmental objectives required under the regulatory regime.

Field guide for the environmental assessment of abandoned petroleum wellsites in the Cooper Basin, SA - 2009 edition (.PDF) 3.9 MB
This document is referred to in the SA Cooper Basin Operators Drilling and Well Operations SEO as a guide for assessing the well site restoration environmental objectives.

Field guide for the environmental assessment of recently completed seismic lines in the Cooper Basin, SA - 2006 edition  (.PDF) 1.90MB
This field guide is structured around the Goal Attainment Scaling criteria used to assess compliance with the Statement of Environmental Objectives.

Manual for Seismic Operations in the South East     (.PDF) 3.42MB
This document provides a useful reference source for planning seismic operations in the South East of South Australia.


The Environmental Regulation section includes more details about the environmental approval process.