Exploration and the Approval Clock
What the NOPSEMA Environment Plan register shows for the 255 plans it classifies as exploration: how many are filed, what happens to them, and the elapsed time from submission to decision, measured on fewer and fewer plans.
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PDF, KLA-PINTEL-REP-004 Rev B.
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 Exploration filings fell by four fifths
122 exploration-stage plans were submitted in 2012 to 2014 and 22 in 2023 to 2025: 45.7% of all filings in the first period and 23.7% in the second. The brief does not say why.
02 The highest cancellation rate of the stages large enough to compare
34 of 255 exploration-stage plans were cancelled before a decision (13.3%). The register does not record why.
03 Elapsed time rose, on a shrinking sample
Accepted exploration-stage plans: a median of 117 days from submission to decision for plans decided 2017 to 2020 (n=39), and 307 days for plans decided 2023 to 2025 (n=16). The recent median rests on only 16 plans: removing any one of them moves it to between 251 and 363 days. Wider recent windows give 249 days (n=21, decided 2022 to 2025) and 244 days (n=31, decided 2021 to 2025).
04 Fewer exploration plans are being decided
Accepted exploration-stage plans fell from 42 in 2013 to between 4 and 6 a year in 2023 to 2025 (by decision year). That is why the recent median is thin.
05 Refusal is rare
8 exploration-stage plans have been refused, 7 of them decided 2012 to 2017. The register does not record why.
Read the size of the rise as uncertain (n=16)
The brief puts a resampling interval of about 1.4 to 4.4 times on the change between the two windows (95%, bootstrap), with the recent window at n=16 plans decided 2023 to 2025. The direction is clear; the size is not.
What the brief is computed on.
| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Exploration-stage plans | 255: 228 new plans and 27 revisions |
| Duration basis | Accepted plans, including those accepted with conditions, grouped by decision year; 2026 excluded from the windows the brief leads with |
| Reporting floor | 15 plans for the exploration duration comparison, lower than the 20 used elsewhere; every figure below 20 carries its n |
| 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 titleholder named
Like the Census, the brief names no titleholder and makes no cross-operator comparison.
Environment Plans only
No safety cases or other submissions, and no Environment Plan text is reproduced.
The other briefs, and the Census.
ProveINTEL, Exploration and the Approval Clock. KLA-PINTEL-REP-004 Rev B. 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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