• incidental coal seam gas and rights to dispose of and to profit from incidental coal seam gas;
• some advances in the development of coordination arrangements; and
• developments in the area of coal seam gas production water.

Laws of the Australian States declare both coal and petroleum to be the property of the States, and the States impose royalties on their commercial production. In exchange, industry should be entitled to expect consistent and appropriate legislative and policy regimes that enable the efficient production and commercial utilisation of these resources.

Queensland commenced a process for the revision of its policy and the development of new legislation on petroleum and gas, inclusive of coal seam gas (CSG), around five years ago. At that time the perception was that the interests of CSG explorers and producers were neither well understood nor well represented to government. This led to the foundation of the Australian Coal Seam Gas Council. The Council contributed intensively to the development of the new legislation.

This paper addresses some areas that were either left incomplete or that are still under development. No doubt there are other areas of concern. This paper examines a number of specific issues, principally with the aim of further examining issues that were discussed at the equivalent conference in 2006. The aim is for this paper not to address legal technical issues, but rather to deal with developments in specific areas in the context of existing legislation and policy.

This paper will deal principally with the Petroleum and Gas (Production and Safety) Act 2004 (Queensland) (PGA) and the Mineral Resources Act 1989 (Queensland) (MRA). On relevant issues the Petroleum Act 1923 (Queensland) is similar to the PGA and so will not be separately discussed.

Finally, the focus of this paper is on Queensland because the development of policy and law concerning CSG in the other States where CSG exploration or production exists or is proposed lags someway behind. Unfortunately that includes NSW where a number of companies have explored for and produced CSG for some time. This paper will conclude with a brief overview of the state of petroleum laws in relevant states.

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