Because NPI thresholds are tested and reports lodged facility by facility, deciding where a facility’s boundary lies is often the first step in assessing an obligation.
Key points
- A facility is buildings or land plus the plant used there
- Offshore petroleum facilities are included
- Sites under 2 km apart are generally one facility
- Sites over 10 km apart are separate facilities
- Each facility lodges its own report
The legal definition
The NPI NEPM defines a facility as any building or land, together with the machinery, plant, appliances, equipment, implements, tools and other items used in connection with the activities carried out there. It includes an offshore facility, meaning a vessel or structure in adjacent offshore areas used or built for recovering petroleum, including natural gas, or for drilling and well operations. A facility may sit on one site or on adjacent or contiguous sites owned or operated by the same person.
The distance guidance
- Sites less than 2 kilometres apart are treated as one facility, unless residential areas lie between them.
- For sites between 2 and 10 kilometres apart, the occupier can choose to report them as one facility or two, unless residential areas lie between them.
- Sites more than 10 kilometres apart are separate facilities.
Distances are measured between the nearest site boundaries, not the centres of the sites.
Tailings storage facilities
A tailings storage facility always belongs to the facility whose waste it receives, whatever the distance.
One report per facility
Each facility that exceeds a threshold lodges its own report, even when one company operates many facilities in the same state.
Activities outside the definition
Clause 9(11) of the NEPM removes certain activities, such as petrol retailing and dry cleaners with fewer than 20 employees, from the meaning of facility for reporting purposes. Offshore facilities exclude vessels doing only site surveys or shallow seabed investigations.
An NPI facility is not an NGER facility
The NGER scheme defines a facility differently, as an activity or series of activities that form a single undertaking or enterprise. A site that reports under both schemes can therefore have different facility boundaries for each, and the NPI boundary must be tested against the NPI rules above.
Why it matters
Where the boundary is drawn decides whether thresholds are tested across one combined site or several smaller ones, which can change whether a report is required. A tailings storage facility some distance from a processing plant is still part of the plant’s facility, so its transfers and emissions belong in that facility’s report. The occupier with operational control lodges the report, and the boundary decision should be recorded and applied consistently from year to year.
References & sources
Primary regulatory documents and authoritative references underpinning this answer.