BP Drops Plans to Explore for Oil in Great Australian Bight
October 10 2016 - 11:15PM
Dow Jones News
By Robb M. Stewart
MELBOURNE, Australia--BP PLC (BP) has dropped plans to explore
for oil in the Great Australian Bight off southern Australia, after
it said it determined the project wouldn't be able to compete for
capital investment against other opportunities globally.
The project had faced opposition from environmental groups that
warned of potential spills on the scale of the 2010 Deepwater
Horizon disaster, and repeated requests for information on BP's
plans from the national energy safety regulator.
BP on Tuesday said it had decided not to progress with an
exploration drilling program in the Bight following a review of the
company's upstream strategy.
"We have looked long and hard at our exploration plans for the
Great Australian Bight but, in the current external environment, we
will only pursue frontier exploration opportunities if they are
competitive and aligned to our strategic goals," said Claire
Fitzpatrick, BP managing director for exploration and production in
Australia.
Ms. Fitzpatrick said the decision wasn't the result of a change
in BP's view on the prospects of the region off South Australia
state or the ongoing regulatory process being run by the National
Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority.
She said progress had been made in preparing for drilling in the
Bight.
Regulator NOPSEMA said it was a commercial decision by BP not to
explore in the Bight.
BP secured exploration licenses for four areas within the Bight
in January 2011, and acquired seismic data later that year and into
early 2012.
Subject to regulatory approval, BP had sought to drill four
exploration wells in the area in water depths of about 1,000 meters
to 2,500 meters, hundreds of kilometers off the coast.
Greenpeace had warned the project would put Australia on the
path to a disaster similar to that took place in the Gulf of Mexico
in 2010, saying a damaging spill could reach the shoreline of
states along Australia's coast.
Write to Robb M. Stewart at robb.stewart@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 10, 2016 23:00 ET (03:00 GMT)
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