APPEA Industry Strategy | APPEA

Platform for Prosperity is Australia’s Upstream Oil and Gas Industry Strategy. 

The objective of the Strategy is to ensure the value of Australia’s oil and gas resources to the Australian people is maximised, petroleum energy security delivered and long term sustainability of an Australian oil and gas industry assured. 

Released in April 2007, the Strategy proposes a vision and targets for the industry over the next decade and 65 actions which could be taken by the industry or governments to help achieve those targets.

The Strategy identifies 7 priorities for urgent attention:

1. An improved fiscal framework for gas projects;

2. An improved framework for exploration;

3. More consistent and more efficient national petroleum regulation; 

4. Harnessing the greenhouse benefits of gas by establishing a level playing field for fuel-on-fuel competition;

5. Continuously improving environmental and safety performance and increasing community awareness of the Industry's performance and values;

6. Improving and better coordinating research and development; and

7. Developing a national petroleum skills and locational training plan.

The implementation and progress towards these objectives is overseen by a joint industry and government implementation group. Each year this group reviews the progress made on the key actions outlined in Platform for Prosperity. 

In May 2009, the second implementation report, State of the Industry 2009 was released.

State of the Industry 2009 notes that as a result of a number of policy reviews at state and federal levels: ‘governments have the opportunity to put in place a policy framework that will trigger the step-change increase in oil and gas exploration and development activity envisaged by the Upstream Oil and Gas Industry Strategy’.