Following New South Wales in declaring a ban on fraccing, Victorian Resources Minister Michael O’Brien said the ban would be instituted while the government worked its way through the legislative changes required to allow an expansion of the industry.

“In anticipation of new standards being considered through this reform process, the Coalition government has decided to place a hold on approvals to undertake hydraulic fracturing as part of onshore gas exploration,” O’Brien said.

“This hold will remain in place until the national framework proposals have been presented, and then considered and responded to by the Coalition government.

“This approach will help to avoid a situation where applications for hydraulic fracturing works might be approved now, only to be inconsistent with new standards to be set in the near future.”

In addition to legislative wrangling, work is underway to determine the Victorian-based scientific studies that will be funded by the national partnership agreement.

This work will be supplemented by a Gippsland regional scale study by a federal government scientific committee into the impact of mining activity on water resources.

While the ban is not expected to impact any current leaseholders, it would still be a blow to the burgeoning industry in the state.

Calls for a ban have been bubbling away in the background since the start of the year, and only intensified with news that ExxonMobil had entered the Gippsland Basin in search of coal seam gas.

While ExxonMobil’s program does not involve any hydraulic fracturing, the presence of a major searching for CSG is thought to have made landholders nervous.

A statement from ExxonMobil supplied to EnergyNewsPremium did not directly comment on the ban, aside to say that it did not use hydraulic fracturing and it may not be needed if it moves to production.

However, it acknowledged community concern over the practice.

“Given the exploration for coal seam gas is relatively new in Gippsland, we will continue to work with the community to explain our project and better understand and respond to their concerns,” it said.

Meanwhile the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association has hit out at the move, saying Victoria was ignoring examples of positive CSG development.

“The CSG industry actually has a track record that it is very proud of and the Victorian government should consider what has occurred in Queensland over the past 20 years,” a spokesperson told ENP

Any move to stall the development of Victoria’s gas industry is disappointing, as it will deter investment and see Victoria fall further behind Australia’s rapidly-growing resource-rich states.

The spokesperson also said it was disappointing to see the Victorian government had caved into community pressure, in particular the “the scaremongering and blatant untruths regarding the CSG industry peddled by activists railing against the community’s continued use of hydrocarbons and traditional energy sources.”

This article first appeared in ILN's sister publication EnergyNewsBulletin.net.