Compliance and enforcement
The EPA maintains an active compliance program to protect the environment from impacts from the exploitation of gas resources.
Compliance is achieved when gas operations meet the requirements of all legislative and statutory frameworks. That is, they comply with their Environment Protection Licence (EPL), and conditions of their development consent, petroleum licence and associated codes of practice such as the Code of Practice for Construction, Operation and Decommissioning of Petroleum Wells. All gas projects in NSW are required to have an Environment Protection Licence.
The EPA’s compliance program is used to:
- monitor compliance with the regulatory framework
- drive improved environmental performance
- carry out enforcement action to address non-compliance.
The compliance program includes conducting environmental risk assessments of gas operations, reviewing gas operator’s operations plans and well decommissioning plans, and undertaking gas site inspections to ensure compliance.
We take regulatory and enforcement action where non-compliance is detected.
More information on our approach to enforcement action can be found in the EPA Regulatory Policy. For further information about when and how we prosecute offences, refer to the EPA prosecution guidelines.