Offshore Decommissioning and the Approval Clock
What the NOPSEMA Environment Plan register shows for the 111 plans it classifies as decommissioning: elapsed time from submission to decision, how the stage is spread across activity types, filing volume, and what has happened to each plan.
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PDF, KLA-PINTEL-REP-003 Rev A.
The findings, each with its population and n.
From the brief's own start-here page. Every duration is elapsed time from submission to decision for accepted plans, grouped by the year they were decided. The register cannot divide that time between the regulator and the titleholder, and the brief does not try.
01 Elapsed time rose 4.9 times between the two windows
Accepted decommissioning-stage plans: a median of 78.5 days from submission to decision for plans decided 2017 to 2020 (n=24), and 383 days for plans decided 2023 to 2025 (n=25).
02 The finding does not depend on borderline plans
With 15 named plans a practitioner might not call decommissioning removed, the median moves from 69 days (n=21, decided 2017 to 2020) to 392.5 days (n=22, decided 2023 to 2025), 5.7 times. The brief leads with 4.9 times, on the classification as published.
03 The stage is wider than its activity type
The 111 decommissioning-stage plans file under seven activity types. Only 42 of the 111 carry the word "decommissioning" in their activity type.
04 Volume is volatile, and the brief does not call it a trend
Decommissioning-stage filings peaked at 20 in 2022 (by submission year) and returned to between 5 and 9 a year. No trend line is fitted.
05 Cancellation is more common than refusal
Of the 111 plans, 9 were cancelled before a decision (8.1%) and 1 was refused. The register does not record why.
What the brief is computed on.
| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Decommissioning-stage plans | 111: 69 new plans and 42 revisions |
| Duration basis | Accepted plans, including those accepted with conditions, grouped by decision year; 2026 excluded as a partial year |
| Reporting floor | n=20 on both sides of any comparison the brief leads with |
| Register | Coverage to 17 July 2026; extracted 21 July 2026; frozen as a census table on 27 July 2026 |
What this brief deliberately does not do.
No cause
It measures that elapsed time changed. It does not say why, and attributes no change to the regulator, to titleholders or to anyone else.
No forecast
No future volume, no future timeframe and no decision date for any plan is projected from this data.
No cross-operator duration comparison
The brief gives filing counts only by operator group, and no elapsed time for any titleholder. Nothing is ranked.
Environment Plans only
No safety cases or other submissions, and no Environment Plan text is reproduced.
The other briefs, and the Census.
ProveINTEL, Offshore Decommissioning and the Approval Clock. KLA-PINTEL-REP-003 Rev A. ProveINTEL is Klarite's tool for analysing the NOPSEMA public register of Environment Plans. Data derived from the public register at info.nopsema.gov.au. ProveINTEL is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, NOPSEMA.
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