The Wilderness Society v NOPSEMA and Santos
Federal Court of Australia | NSD1342/2025
On 1 August 2025, The Wilderness Society filed a judicial review application in the Federal Court of Australia, challenging a decision of the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) to accept an Environment Plan submitted by Santos WA Northwest Pty Ltd (Santos).
The Wilderness Society is an independent, community-based, not-for-profit environmental advocacy organisation with a long-standing interest in the conservation of Australia’s coastlines and oceans.
Background to the claim
Under Australian law, a company must submit an Environment Plan before undertaking offshore petroleum activities, like oil and gas production and decommissioning. NOPSEMA must assess and approve an Environment Plan before the company carries out the activities in the plan.
The Environment Plan relevant to this case relates to Santos’ Reindeer gas field situated off the north west coast of Western Australia.
On 24 April 2025, Santos submitted to NOPSEMA a revised Environment Plan for the Reindeer field. The Reindeer field is approaching the end of its economically viable production life and Santos expects it to cease production in mid-2025. Accordingly, the Environment Plan outlines how Santos intends to manage the Reindeer field site during the post-production phase, including the preservation of infrastructure until a final decision is made about decommissioning or re-purposing.
Decommissioning involves the removal of infrastructure from the offshore area that was previously used to support oil and gas operations. The Australian government estimates that oil and gas companies will spend $60B on decommissioning offshore infrastructure in the next 30-50 years.
On 8 May 2025, NOPSEMA accepted Santos’ Environment Plan. In NOPSEMA’s Statement of Reasons for accepting the Environment Plan, NOPSEMA indicated that it was reasonably satisfied that Santos was compliant with section 571(2) of the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 (Cth). That section requires titleholders to maintain adequate financial assurance to meet certain costs, expenses and liabilities.
What the claim alleged
The Wilderness Society argued that:
- NOPSEMA’s assessment of whether Santos was compliant with section 571(2) did not include an assessment of whether Santos had maintained adequate financial assurance to cover decommissioning costs;
- NOPSEMA took this approach because it misconstrued section 571(2) by not considering the costs, expenses and liabilities relating to decommissioning activities;
- As a result, the decision to accept the Environment Plan was legally flawed.
Prior to this case, the scope of section 571(2) had never been considered by a Court. The Wilderness Society argued that section 571(2) requires Santos to maintain financial assurance to cover the costs expenses and liabilities of decommissioning its offshore infrastructure.
Judgement
On 7 April 2026, the hearing was held in the Federal Court before Justice Abraham.
In its judgment delivered 7 August 2026, the Court dismissed the application. The Court’s judgment is available here. The Wilderness Society’s media release on the judgment is available here.
The legal team
The Wilderness Society is represented by Equity Generation Lawyers.
The Wilderness Society’s counsel were Stephen Lloyd SC, Robert White and Zoe Bush.
