On Wednesday, WA’s independent Environmental Protection Authority released its Environmental Protection Bulletin on Hydraulic fracturing for onshore natural gas from shale and tight rocks, the first update since 2011.

EPA chairman Paul Vogel told Energy News that the bulletin was “an update in anticipation of, in the next couple of years, a possible referral for a production proposal”

“This [updated bulletin} is saying, if we ended up with multiple exploration proposals that might be in environmentally sensitive areas, or there is a high level of uncertainty about the environmental information, or we’re into a full scale production proposal, then here’s a heads up to proponents – and informing the community – that if it’s significant enough to be formally assessed, here’s what we would see as the specific matters related to hydraulic fracturing, and here’s what we would require so we can conduct a comprehensive and rigorous impacts assessment,” he said.

Industry has been making slow progress developing its eye-watering potential, both in the Perth and Canning basins, with companies citing a lack of infrastructure and rigs, coupled with cumbersome approvals processes and native title issues, dragging them down.

The equity market didn’t help, and now the plummeting oil price has rubbed salt into those wounds. The days of $100/barrel oil appear years away now.

Still – as Energy News reported in October – the EPA has deemed six small-scale, proof-of-concept proposals involving hydraulic fracturing between 1500-3500m as not being significant enough to warrant closer examination, and that the Department of Mines and Petroleum could handle them.

One of these was Buru Energy’s proposal for the Kimberley.

The updated bulletin is affirmation of the state’s ability to regulate, but appears in stark contrast to the Department of Mines and Petroleum’s recently retired petroleum chief, highly respected industry veteran Bill Tinapple, who has conceded to Energy News that WA was caught wrong-footed by industry opposition, comfortable in its own complacency.

“We didn’t appreciate the impact that mass media would have, how fast the Gasland documentary was distributed and how much of an issue that was going to be,” Tinapple reflected to Energy News in September.

“I have to say we were caught on our back foot. We tried to catch up as best we could and we took a logical approach to it – doing an independent review of the legislation trying to ensure it was adequate, we went out and did some publicity in the areas that might be affected and put on town meetings and so on.

“We did publications, got our website up … we did everything we should have but I have to say we should’ve done it all two to three years earlier if we had the foresight and should have tried to get people onside so they’d understand what was involved.”

But Vogel would have none of it. He said the government saw the CSG debate raging on the east coast and in the US, but the industry simply had not reached a point in WA where production scenarios needed to be accounted for.

“It was appropriate for where we were in this emerging industry, and the regulatory framework,” Vogel said about the state of the regulatory regime back in 2011.

“We’ve been in the business of assessing the impacts of significant developments for 42 years, so it’s not like we’re not attuned to assessing complex or sensitive projects.

“So we weren’t at all alarmed, we knew we could handle this, and between the departments of health, water and mines and petroleum all have strong regulatory frameworks that act in concert in ensuring that these developments are environmentally acceptable.

“I’m not at all uncomfortable where we are now and where we were a few years ago.

“It was commensurate with the level of development of the industry and importantly, the significance in our view and – in our view, lack of significance – of impacts of proof of concept small exploration proposals. Then, because we formed the view that they weren’t significant, they can be adequately regulated by the DMP and water [department].

“We were in good shape then, we’re in better shape now where we have regulations put in place by the DMP; we have time to get that framework to world’s best practice.”

The DMP is also developing new resource management and administration regulations which will update the requirement to prepare a well management plan and field development plan and provide a risk-based management system for the exploration for, and production of, petroleum and geothermal energy resources, including shale and tight gas.

The well management plan is to ensure that the well is designed and managed to best practice standards. The field development plan outlines the recovery strategy and the position of wells.

The DMP, in close cooperation with the EPA, the departments of Water, Environment Regulation, Health, and other agencies, is also developing a WA shale and tight gas framework to provide a “whole of government” description of the regulatory framework for shale and tight gas.