The Environment Plan Census 2026, free edition
The register-level summary of our census of every Environment Plan NOPSEMA has published. It is complete as far as it goes: no table in it has been cut down to make room for the licensed edition. Every figure traces to the public register, and where the record is silent the report says so rather than estimating.
One address, and the PDF is yours.
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Download the free edition
PDF, version 1.5 (KLA-PINTEL-REP-002 Rev C), about 420 KB.
Three findings in full, and two previews of the full edition.
These are the report's own five findings, from its start-here page. Each comes with what to do about it. The report names no titleholder and ranks no one.
01 Approvals now take about two and a half times as long as in 2017 to 2020
The typical plan took 111 to 126 days then, and 275 to 292 days in 2024 and 2025, after 474 days in 2023. It has not come back down. Stop using timings from before 2021, or your last plan, as your schedule baseline.
02 Preview: the rise is industry-wide
The full edition shows the same rise in every region, project stage, activity and plan type large enough to measure.
03 Plan for the slow plans, not the typical one
In 2023 and 2025, one accepted plan in ten took more than two years. A long wait does not mean a decision is close. Schedule against the slow plans.
04 The real exit risk is cancellation, not refusal
Of 713 plans, 60 were cancelled (8.4%) and 13 refused (1.8%). Seismic plans were cancelled at 16.0%, against 5.2% for drilling. Put cancellation on your risk register, not only refusal.
05 Preview: returned plans fail on the same short list
The full edition names the criteria returned plans failed, from NOPSEMA's published decision notices, and shows what a return costs in time.
+ And what we cannot tell you
Approval times rose and the register cannot say why. Changes to the Regulations, regulator resourcing, litigation and the mix of activities all fall in the same years. The report gives no cause and makes no forecast.
A short start, then the story in five parts.
- Start here. The question, the five findings in one line each, and what to do.
- 1. Introduction. Why borrowed approval dates mislead, what the register is, and how many plans are filed each year.
- 2. How we measured it. The method in plain English: every plan counted, calendar days from filing to decision, plans grouped by the year they were decided, and no group reported under 20 plans.
- 3. Results. How long approvals take now, the slow plans, how plans leave the register, the plans in assessment, and NOPSEMA's on-time figure set beside the elapsed time it does not measure.
- 4. Discussion. What the findings mean for scheduling and the risk register, and what the public data cannot tell you, listed once.
- 5. Conclusion: what to do. Five steps for your next plan.
- Notes on the data, and what else is available. Source, counts checked against NOPSEMA's own figures, the version history, and the full edition, the Market Comparison Report and Klarite's approvals services.
The population, as the report states it.
This is the population the whole edition rests on, from the report's notes on the data. It is printed here for the same reason: a reader should be able to see the population before they read a single rate computed on it.
| Fact | Value |
|---|---|
| Environment Plans on register | 713 (720 raw, less 7 flagged phantom records) |
| Submission date span | 2012-01-01 to 2026-07-17 |
| Decision date span | 2012-01-27 to 2026-06-24 |
| Plans with a submission date | 710 |
| Plans with a decision date | 625 |
| Distinct submitting entities | 109, as the register lists them |
| Distinct titleholder groups | 59, grouped by ProveINTEL by company name; none is named in the free edition |
| Distinct activity types | 15 |
Two numbers that look like a contradiction and are not
The report works on 713 plans, being 720 raw register entries less 7 flagged phantom records that do not correspond to a real submission. Elsewhere on this site we quote the register total. Both are right on their own basis, and each names it. That is the whole convention: a figure without a stated population is not a figure we publish.
What this edition deliberately does not do.
These absences are the reason the rest of it can be relied on.
No cause asserted for the 2023 break
Regulatory change, resourcing, litigation and shifts in activity mix all coincide. The register cannot separate them, so the report measures the effect and does not assert a cause, in either direction. The symmetric claim, that submissions got worse, is equally absent.
No forecast, no market size, no growth rate
The register records filings and decisions, not spend. Any market figure would have to be imported from undisclosed estimates or invented, so there is none.
No cross-operator duration league table
That comparison is confounded by filing era: an operator's all-time median is substantially a measurement of when it filed. One internally drafted headline of exactly that shape failed an era-controlled test and was withdrawn before publication.
No quoted Environment Plan text
Plan documents remain their titleholders' copyright and none is reproduced anywhere in the report.
What the licensed edition adds.
The free edition is the register-level summary. The licensed edition is the depth it does not go to: duration broken out by region, activity type and lifecycle stage across two eras; all fifteen activity types; every titleholder with ten or more filings; what returned plans actually failed, from the regulator's own published decision notices; two independent reconciliations against NOPSEMA's published counts; the forward view over the plans currently under assessment; and a data appendix reproducing every table.
ProveINTEL, The Environment Plan Census 2026. Every figure traceable to the NOPSEMA public register (info.nopsema.gov.au). ProveINTEL is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, NOPSEMA.
One address, and it is the whole register.
No list, no follow-up sequence, no card. Read it, and decide from there whether you need the depth.
Or write to services@klarite.com.au and we will send it by hand.