Declaration of reserved blocks under the Petroleum Act in accordance with the Hydraulic Fracturing Inquiry’s recommendation

The Scientific Inquiry into Hydraulic Fracturing in the Northern Territory (the Inquiry) determined that there are some areas in the Northern Territory that should never be available for exploration or production activities related to onshore petroleum.

The Northern Territory Government accepted this finding and all 135 recommendations from the Inquiry in April 2018.

The Northern Territory Government will protect certain areas of the Territory from being subject to petroleum exploration or production activities. This will be achieved by declaring areas of land as reserved blocks (no-go zones) under the Petroleum Act.

Protected areas will include national parks, areas of high ecological value, towns and residential areas.

The Northern Territory Government has used the recommendations of the Final Report of the Scientific Inquiry into Hydraulic Fracturing in the Northern Territory to determine which areas should be declared reserved blocks.

This series of recommendations includes recommendation 14.4, which identifies that protected areas should include:

• areas of high tourism value
• towns and residential areas (including areas that have assets of strategic importance to nearby residential areas)
• national parks
• conservation reserves
• areas of high ecological value
• areas of cultural significance
• Indigenous Protected Areas.

This consultation paper is an opportunity for the community to comment on the areas proposed to be protected from petroleum activities.

Consultation will be open for a period of four weeks, closing on 21 June 2019.

How to have your say

Have your say by completing the online feedback form below by Friday 21 June 2019. If you would like to send a document submission, please email your feedback to info.dpir@nt.gov.au

Please be advised that all submissions will be made public and published online after the four week consultation period, which ends Friday 21 June 2019. Requests for exemptions to a submission being published will be considered for either commercial in confidence or cultural reasons.

What happens next

Following feedback government will commence finalising policy on declaring reserved blocks under the Petroleum Act as per Recommendation 14.4, Recommendation 14.3 and Recommendation 14.5 of the Inquiry’s Final Report.