Online Portal – POINT

Issued 30 Mar 2021

Online Portal – POINT

Information and data about onshore petroleum activities in the Northern Territory (NT) is now easily accessible through a new online portal called POINT.

POINT is a free mapping tool that includes information relating to proposed and approved activities, including environmental approvals, environment management plans, monitoring data and compliance.

The portal also includes details about:

  • Our regulatory framework
  • Environment compliance reporting
  • Industry codes of practice and guidelines
  • Geological regions (Basins and Sub-basins)
  • Petroleum titles
  • Petroleum wells
  • Companies with petroleum interests
  • Groundwater monitoring data
  • Related information and resources

POINT is compatible with existing mapping software such as STRIKE and NR MAPS.

A user guide is built into POINT to help you navigate your way across each of the 7 working modes (buttons) that automatically adjust the map layers and search functions.

The portal works well on PCs, tablets and mobile devices and includes a full list of definitions to help people unfamiliar with the content better understand the information being presented.

POINT contributes to the Government’s commitment of ensuring transparency in the development and regulation of the onshore petroleum industry so that the environment and jobs are protected.

Notifying the community that EMPs are open for public comment

The Department of Environment, Parks and Water Security (DEPWS) is improving the way it publishes onshore petroleum environment management plans (EMPs) to ensure it reaches a wider audience.

Under the Petroleum (Environment) Regulations 2016, the Minister for Environment must publish environment management plans relating to drilling or hydraulic fracturing, along with a notice that the plan has been published.

Previously, notices about the plans have been placed in local newspapers.

Moving forward, all notices will now be advertised on the NT Government’s Have Your Say website.

Publishing the notice on Have Your Say is expected to reach a wider audience and increase public awareness that EMPs have been published for comment

Environment Management Plans have always been and will continue to be published on DEPWS website.

The benefits of this approach are that:

  • The notice is available online for the full 28 day period that the EMPs are published online:
    • an online notice will ensure a much wider distribution when compared to local newspapers
    • any person that has subscribed to the Have Your Say website will receive a notification that a notice has been published about a new EMP
    • any person that has subscribed to this Community Bulletin will also receive the same notice that goes onto the Have Your Say website, i.e. there is an EMP out for comment.

Onshore gas companies will still be required to engage with stakeholders, including land councils and pastoralists, before they submit and Environment Management Plan to the Minister.

A notice with the above information has also been published in various NT newspapers.