PERTH (miningweekly.com) – New South Wales Resources and Energy Minister Anthony Roberts on Wednesday announced the cancellation of two petroleum exploration licences for coal seam gas (CSG) held by independent explorer Pangaea, following a buyback.

The first of the licences covered about one-million hectares north of Maitland, while the second covered a further 565 497 ha on the Queensland border.

Roberts said that the buyback programme formed part of the state government’s gas reform, and provided a one-off opportunity for petroleum exploration licence holders to surrender titles for limited compensation.

“Under Labour, almost half of New South Wales was covered with petroleum exploration licences and licence applications, for just a A$1 000 fee, with no protections in place for our water, agricultural land or environment.”

Roberts said that the new gas plan has reduced this area by 15%.

In November last year, the New South Wales government announced sweeping reforms of its operating system, announcing plans to reset the entire system for petroleum exploration licences and announcing that the Office of Coal Seam Gas (OCSG) would be responsible for the assessment of all CSG exploration applications.

Under the new process, a company proposing gas exploration must prepare a review of environmental factors, which examines and responds to all potential impacts of the proposal.

“Our new strategic release framework will see an assessment of environmental, economic and social factors, with community consultation conducted up-front, before a title area is considered for release,” Roberts said.

“We are determined to ensure world’s best practice regulation of the gas industry, while safely and sustainably providing energy security for New South Wales.”

Greens group Lock the Gate Alliance on Wednesday welcomed the government announcement, with spokesperson Georgina Woods saying it would be a relief to people living in 1.5-million hectares of regional New South Wales that had the threat of CSG hanging over them because of “careless licence hand-outs”.

However, Woods said that there were still too many communities across New South Wales exposed to the risk CSG posed to their community health, their land and their drinking water.

“Today’s cancellation of two Pangaea CSG licences is a positive step forward but we urgently need more decisive action to protect areas that are currently under immediate threat.

“While the Minister has his red pen out, he should heed overwhelming community wishes and cancel the unconventional gas exploration licences across the Northern Rivers – no special treatment, no exceptions.”

She noted that one of the key tests of the gas plan would be whether it provided a safety net for all communities with existing or proposed CSG projects, not just a lucky few.

“As it stands, the gas plan currently falls well short of that test, does not meet the recommendations by the chief scientist and lags behind community sentiment on CSG mining.”

In 2014, chief scientist and engineer Mary O’Kane made a number of recommendations around the state’s CSG industry, which included designating areas for CSG extraction, ensuring high standards of engineering and professionalism in CSG companies, creating a state environment data repository, comprehensive monitoring of CSG operations with ongoing scrutiny of collected data, a well-trained and certified workforce and applying new technologies as measures to corral the CSG industry.