With this WA fracking company in liquidation, who foots the clean-up bill?

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New Standard Energy had high hopes of extracting gas in the Kimberley. Now with only $17,000 in the bank, the company has left one of its sites in disarray and three others are yet to be rehabilitated.

abc.net.au/news/new-standard-energy-liquidation-fracking-rehabilitation/101751662An embattled energy company in WA's Kimberley region has gone into liquidation, ending a 10-year decline and leaving significant questions over who will pay their rehabilitation and decommissioning costs.

Riding a wave of speculation, the company partnered with oil refiner ConocoPhillips in a $110-million deal in 2011, only for the energy giant to pull the plug after NSE failed to find commercial quantities of gas. Mr Quin said he had only found $17,000 in company bank accounts, could not reach directors despite multiple attempts and had not received any cooperation from the company.

In 2019 DMIRS estimated the cost of capping and rehabilitating would be around $1.9 million, but who will foot the bill is still unclear.

 

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Typical of the way things are done, privatise the profits and socialise the losses. Maybe part of conducting this type of business, there should be money kept in a fund so they don’t do a runner when the time comes to clean up the mess.

Taxpayer. Free Market economics.

Is it weak WA laws as mining clean up going back to Rhinehardts Dad Lang Hancock have left dangerous deep uncovered holes out in the Pilbara Region

The board

It's the same every time, privatise the profits and socialise the clean up.

i propose a and environmental insurance tax imposed on all mining fracking and development companies the money will be used to fix the mess they leave behind when they gut their companies and make off to the Caymans with all their profits its only logical

tthompsonfuller Why - at the time of granting the exploration license - has no security deposit been paid to the WA government equal to the de-commissioning costs? If the responsible Minister BillJohnstonMLA had to pay, he would be bankrupt in milli seconds tanya_plibersek

Wait until we have to clean up the old coal fired power stations' mess

Why do we let companies run with execs out of reach of our legal system?

Typical. These companies and those running them , plus the governments allowing this should all be liable. Not the taxpayer as always. Boo 😒 ruination and robbery !!!

Every time! Why are there no safeguards tanya_plibersek? Gas wells are notoriously difficult to cap and leak methane indefinitely.

Now do unreliables ABC...

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