ASIC to run the ruler over oil and gas clean up liabilities

ASIC has announced that the scrutiny of oil and gas companies’ reporting of decommissioning and site restoration costs will be a key focus area for 2026/7.

In a media release this week announcing their financial reporting, audit and sustainability focus areas, the corporate regulator states that it will “review the disclosures of companies that have provisions for decommissioning and site-restoration costs”. 

This announcement follows a complaint to ASIC from the Wilderness Society, via its legal team at Equity Generation Lawyers, alleging that Beach Energy and Amplitude Energy may be misrepresenting the market and investors by understating clean up liabilities. 

The complaint came at the same time as global analytics group Carbon Tracker found that Australian companies provided the poorest disclosures, averaging just 19% of the relevant information disclosed—less than half the rates of their UK (45%) and Canadian (42%) counterparts.

The cost of cleaning up Australia’s offshore oil and gas industry is estimated at $65 billion over the next 40 years, with around $10 billion due to be paid out by oil and gas companies in the next decade. 

Amanda Holly, Corporate Campaigner for the Wilderness Society, said, “The scale of decommissioning liabilities in Australia is immense. ASIC  has a clear opportunity, and obligation to ensure that  fossil fuel companies are accurately reporting to the market and investors the true scale of their responsibility to clean up the marine environment.

“Australia’s oceans are more than resources to be exploited and dumping grounds for decaying fossil fuel infrastructure. They are alive, deeply interconnected, and essential to a healthy climate and future.”