CSG Wells and Your Mortgage

CSG Wells

There has been a bit of media attention lately regarding a bank turning down a loan application on grounds relating to some Coal Seam Gas operations on a property. An example of such a story can be found here.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/sep/30/commonwealth-bank-coal-seam-gas-makes-property-unacceptable-as-loan-security

Conduct and Compensation Agreement

It is usually a term of your bank mortgage that you must seek the consent of your bank prior to entering into any agreement for compensation relating to mining and/or gas activities on your property. It is therefore very important to provide a copy of any Compensation Agreement or CCA to your banker prior to signing any such document.

This will save you dealing with an angry mortgagee later and could have saved the landowners mentioned in the story attached from some problems.

If your bank is worried about any changes in the value of your land, then you can use their valuations or letters as a bargaining tool in your negotiations with a gas or mining company.

Sometimes, especially if the Activities to be performed on your land are quite substantial (e.g. a large gas pipeline), it is a good idea to chat with your banker about how your expected income stream on your property may be affected by gas or mining activities.

Your banker may like to hear from you about when any expected compensation money might be due to be paid to you so they can work with you in meeting the terms of your mortgage.

What can I do?

Conduct and Compensation Agreements for Mining and Gas Agreements are very complicated, and for this reason you should always involve your accountant, your lawyer and your banker at least in any negotiations you start. It is for this reason we would never advise a landowner to “Opt Out” of a negotiation.

The law also requires companies to reimburse landowner legal, accounting and valuation fees so it is always good to get advice on these types of negotiations.

Contact Energy, Environment & Agribusiness Partner, Melanie Findlay on (07) 4927 6333 or at enquire@reesjones.com.au.

Buying a Rural Property with a CCA

Energy, Environment & Agribusiness Solicitor, Emma Kime tells us how important it is to ask the right questions when Buying a Rural Property with a CCA.

Emma can be contacted at Rees R & Sydney Jones Solicitors on (07) 4927 6333 or at enquire@reesjones.com.au.

Conduct and Compensation Agreements

Energy, Environment & Agribusiness Solicitor, Amy Gudmann talks about the standard
Conduct and Compensation Agreement.


Amy can be contacted at Rees R & Sydney Jones Solicitors on (07) 4927 6333 or at enquire@reesjones.com.au.

Just another day in the office....

Our Landowner Lawyer sure has a nice view from her office!

Mining Lease Application Notices as at 26 May 2016

Each week, our Landowner Lawyer shares the Queensland Government Mining Lease Application Notices.

Details of current mining lease applications: Mining Notices as at 26 May 2016.

According to Queensland law, anyone can object to a mining lease application or current environmental authority application for a mining lease. The objection period is a minimum of 20 business days. Make sure your objection is lodged by 4.30 pm on the last day of objections.

If you believe you are affected by a mining lease application or if you would like further information, please contact our Energy, Environment & Agribusiness team on 07 4927 6333 or at enquire@reesjones.com.au.

What do the proposed Environmental Protection Bill changes mean to landowners?

Rees R & Sydney Jones Energy, Environmental & Agribusiness Partner, Melanie Findlay discusses what the proposed amendments to the Environmental Protection (chain of responsibility) Bill 2016 may mean to landowners in Environmental Protection Bill Catches Landowners.

Environmental Offsets with Melanie Findlay

Audio - Environmental Offsets with Melanie Findlay

Environmental Offsets

Below is a transcript of Melanie Findlay’s interview with Aaron Stevens of 990 4RO from Monday 29 February.

Melanie:
Yeah, so we thought it would be good to get information out to Landowners. That is a bit of a passion of mine, to get the information out before things go wrong and just generally inform people about changes in legislation or opportunities because rural isn’t rural anymore in the legal world.

4RO:

Yeah, it’s all changing, isn’t it?

Melanie:

Yes, yes.

4RO:
Well, that’s great. So, Mel is going to join us regularly, give us some advice. If you have got any questions that you would like to raise, feel free to call anytime, 4922 7990, and maybe we can pass those questions onto you?

Melanie:

Yep, happy to answer questions.

4RO:

So question number one, the one we are going to address today, tell me a little bit about environmental offsets and income opportunities in that area?

Melanie:
I guess for Landowners, the opportunities exist when a developer is say going to knock down some Brigalow or some kind of habitat for an animal or something because they need to build a coal mine. Or someone in Yeppoon, for example, might be going to put up a development and knock down some kind of special tree. So what the government says is, “You have knocked down this special habitat or tree over here, you need to go find it somewhere else and manage it and save it”. So, what happens is Landowners get approached, or used to get approached by brokers, and they would be looked at from some desk in Brisbane and they would say, “Oh, there is some Brigalow here,” looking at a SatNav map or whatever and the broker would contact the Landowner and say “Hey, are you interested in providing an offset for this project?”

I guess the big change in this area of law though is we don’t need the broker anymore. So what the government has said is, are you interested in an environmental offset? You can now register in advance. So, you just lodge some forms on the Department’s website and you can say yeah, I am interested in providing an offset and the financial incentives for the offset’s pretty good. They are well above market value for land rates. And, I guess it is taking that middle man out of the job with these advanced offsets.

4RO:

So where would someone go for that sort of information?

Melanie:
There is a couple of places. So we can obviously help out with the forms. They are not that hard, so you can go on to the Department’s website or we can even give you the form numbers to download and if you think that you have a certain type of Brigalow or some kind of special regrowth, perhaps you would like to get a botanist or someone out to come have a look at it and we can also help you with consultancy in that area.

4RO:

Isn’t that good, cause I imagine that would be the toughest part. I mean, you might think that there is something worth protecting but you are not going to know until you go through the processes.

Melanie:

Yeah, there is actually mapping as well available. So certain properties of higher value for offsets are available, we just need to pull the data out to check that your property is one of those.

4RO:

Alright, if someone is after more information and would like to contact you about obtaining that information or the paperwork, what do they do?

Melanie:

They can go onto the Rees Jones website and have a look, we have written a few articles about it. Or they can give me a ring on 4927 6333. I have got a little blog as well which has got some articles specific for just Landowners that you can find through the Rees Jones website as well.

4RO:
Terrific, what’s that address?

Melanie:
www.reesjones.com.au

4RO:
Mel, a pleasure. Looking forward to catching up with you again soon.

Melanie:

Thank you.

Carbon Farming

Our Landowner Lawyer came across a very interesting article, Farming in 2050: storing carbon could help meet Australia's climate goals written by Brett Anthony Bryan and published on the Australian CSIRO blog.

"Agriculture, and particularly livestock, is currently a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. But new markets and incentives could make storing carbon or producing energy from land more profitable than farming, and turn our agricultural land into a carbon sink."

"What is it that Australians really want from our land? We know what we don’t want: wall-to-wall crops, pasture, buildings, gas wells, mines, wind farms or trees.

We can expect healthy debate around the margins, but, in general, diversity, productivity and sustainability seem to be widely valued. Most of us want to leave the place in decent condition for future generations."

If you have any queries about carbon farming opportunities that may be available to you, please do not hesitate to contact our Energy, Environment and Agribusiness Team on (07) 49276333 or at enquire@reesjones.com.au.

You may also be interested in a previous article written by our Energy, Environment and Agribusiness Team Carbon Emissions.

Arrow Update February 2016

Melanie Findlay and Emma Kime from our Energy, Environment & Agribusiness team attended the AgForce February 2016 Member Meeting in Middlemount to discuss the current position of the Arrow pipeline.

Below is a brief summary of the presentation. The full presentation can be view here, Arrow Update.

Arrow Bowen Pipeline Project

The gas project initially comprised of:

• LNG plant Gladstone
• Bowen Gas Project
• ABP (pipeline from Bowen)
• Surat Gas Project
• ASP (pipeline from the Surat)

Additional articles written by our team on the project are “Strategic Cropping Land Declarations at Risk” and “What is a a Pipeline??”

What Now?

Arrow is joint venture of Shell and PetroChina.

December 2015 – the project has been delayed/shelved as gas and oil prices continue to lower.

Shell has recently sold off natural gas and shale assets in Northern America and walked away from the Alaskan Artic project worth $7B.

Energy is an Evolving Industry

The change in attitude towards coal fired power is seeing the closure of coal mines both overseas and in Australia. New technology is bringing down the costs of solar. Renewable energy is definitely an area to watch.

Our Energy, Environment & Agribusiness Partner, Melanie Findlay can be contacted on 07 4927 6333 or enquire@reesjones.com.au.

ARENA data release and large-scale solar projects shortlisted

ARENA data release and large-scale solar projects shortlisted

ARENA have released a summary of the data sourced from their competitive expressions of interest (EOI) round. 

In the EOI round, solar and renewable energy companies were invited to submit a proposal in a bid to secure a portion of the $1000 million in funding that has been set aside for large-scale solar projects. ARENA received proposals for 75 large-scale projects in the EOI round. 

ARENA assessed the EOI applications last year and have since listed 22 projects that are invited to proceed to the full application stage. 10 projects that have been invited to proceed to the full application stage are located in Queensland.

If the Queensland projects are successful in securing funding from ARENA, it is likely that we will see large-scale solar projects in Baralaba, Longreach, Hughenden, Dalby, Collinsville, Oakey, Proserpine and Ipswich.

Full applications must be submitted to ARENA by 15 June 2016. 

Links:
http://arena.gov.au/programmes/advancing-renewables-programme/large-scale-solar-pv/
http://arena.gov.au/resources/large-scale-solar-pv-competitive-round-eoi-application-data/

See also, Emma Kime's article "Solar Projects: The Prospecting Race and ARENA Funding"