{"id":49103,"date":"2025-08-07T00:31:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T00:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/49103\/"},"modified":"2025-08-07T00:31:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T00:31:10","slug":"woodside-slammed-by-regulator-for-safety-incidents-at-multiple-wa-decommissioning-sites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/49103\/","title":{"rendered":"Woodside slammed by regulator for safety incidents at multiple WA decommissioning sites"},"content":{"rendered":"

A key union says it is aware of “significant failures” in Woodside’s safety management at one of its offshore projects, days after the national regulator ordered it to suspend its decommissioning work over similar issues.<\/p>\n

The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) last Thursday revoked the oil and gas giant’s decommissioning obligations at Griffin and Stybarrow gas fields until it completed “essential planning and preparatory activities”.<\/p>\n

The orders come after what NOPSEMA called “preventable health and safety incidents” at both sites.<\/p>\n

NOPSEMA asked BHP to decommission both gas fields in 2021, a year before its petroleum arm was bought by Woodside<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Decommissioning refers to the process of safely closing a mine or oil and gas site, with the expectation that the impacted environment will be rehabilitated afterwards.<\/p>\n

In May, 16,000 litres of oil spilled into the ocean<\/a> during removal operations at Woodside’s Griffin oil and gas field, which NOPSEMA said had the potential to expose workers to hydrogen sulphide.<\/p>\n

\"Aerial<\/p>\n

NOPSEMA investigated an oil spill at Griffin earlier this year, around 60km from the Ningaloo Reef. (Supplied: Nick Thake)<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the regulator said there had been unsuccessful recovery attempts and the presence of hydrates in some infrastructure at Stybarrow.<\/p>\n

A Woodside spokesperson said the company had made substantial progress towards decommissioning the Stybarrow, Griffin and Minerva fields, concluding a multi-year decommissioning program.<\/p>\n

“Across the campaign, more than 25,000 tonnes of infrastructure, including over 140 kilometres of pipe and 100 subsea structures, have been brought to shore to enable recycling and reuse,” it said.<\/p>\n

A Woodside spokesperson said NOPSEMA’s revised general directions provided additional time and clarity for essential planning and preparatory activities.<\/p>\n

Calls to overhaul safety<\/p>\n

The regulator’s directions were welcomed by Maritime Union of Australia organiser Doug Heath, who has sent the regulator a deluge of reports about “near misses” at Woodside’s decommissioning projects.<\/p>\n

He told the ABC that “a fundamental breach” had occurred at one of Woodside’s offshore projects just this week.<\/p>\n

\"Woodside's<\/p>\n

Doug Heath says Woodside’s safety culture has worsened since the death of an employee at North Rankin. (Supplied)<\/p>\n

“We’ve had a series of incidents where workers have suffered, in one case a punctured lung,” Mr Heath said.<\/p>\n

“In other cases, there have been a series of near misses.”<\/p>\n

In March, NOPSEMA confirmed it was investigating lifting and crane operations at McDermott’s DLV 2000 vessel, which has been decommissioning the Stybarrow gas field.<\/p>\n

“The consequence of those rigging failures on the Woodside projects means a potential fatality,” Mr Heath said.<\/p>\n

Two years ago, Woodside contractor Michael Jurman died while working at the North Rankin offshore facility, an incident that NOPSEMA is still investigating.<\/p>\n

Since then, Woodside’s health and safety data<\/a> showed the number of high-potential incidents and total recordable injuries had increased.<\/p>\n

Mr Heath said the company had not learned its lesson.<\/p>\n

“If they need the regulator to tell them that they’re not doing a good enough job, they’ve got some significant failures within their HSC management,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

Woodside says all Enfield, Stybarrow, Minerva and Griffin wells are permanently plugged. (ABC News: Armin Azad)<\/p>\n

“[Woodside is] doing more decommissioning work than probably any other oil and gas company in WA, but their standards have slipped over the course of time.<\/p>\n

“I’m not sure what it’s going to take for Woodside to actually learn from the abundance of evidence that’s come to light over the last couple of years about their substandard safety.”<\/p>\n

A Woodside spokesperson said safety always had been and would continue to be its priority, and it was continuously taking action to strengthen its safety culture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A key union says it is aware of “significant failures” in Woodside’s safety management at one of its…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49104,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,41756,41761,41757,41759,41753,41760,41758,41754,41755],"class_list":{"0":"post-49103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-decommissioning","12":"tag-dlv-2000","13":"tag-griffin-gas-field","14":"tag-minerva-gas-field","15":"tag-nopsema","16":"tag-north-rankin","17":"tag-stybarrow-gas-field","18":"tag-woodside","19":"tag-workers-safety"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}