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Earth Resources - Overview
Role
The Earth Resources Division (ERD) (formerly the Minerals and Petroleum Division) of the Department of Primary Industries has a total of 130 staff in five branches across Victoria and is responsible for the sustainable development of Victoria’s mineral, petroleum, extractive and geothermal industries by:
- Regulating Victoria’s extractive, earth resource industries to achieve outcomes in line with community expectations.
- Promoting the development of the State’s earth resources through:
- The collection, interpretation and delivery of pre-competitive geoscience information
- The facilitation of earth resources projects
- Marketing and promotion of investment opportunities
- Encouraging research and new technologies
- Maintaining, updating and safeguarding the State’s vast earth resources information database as it represents an investment in knowledge that can be used for the future benefit of the State.
- Providing scientific and strategic policy advice to support the development and delivery of Government policy across the earth resources sector.
Core Business
- Earth Resource Industry Regulation Services - provide a consistent and transparent licensing regime and environmental standards, monitoring and enforcement that ensure industry operations meet community expectations.
Earth Resource Industry Development and Information - promote the development of energy, extractive, minerals and petroleum industries in Victoria by facilitating significant projects and maintaining, updating, developing and distributing relevant information and services.
Responsibilities
The Victorian earth resource industries have been founded on three world class geological inheritances: Victoria’s goldfields, the Latrobe Valley coalfields, and the Gippsland Oil Basin. Victoria also possesses substantial competitive resources for extractive industries.
ERD administers the legislation principally associated with the Victorian mining, extractive, geothermal, pipeline and petroleum industries.
Staff
ERD has a total of 130 staff based in four branches: Business Development and Technology, Earth Resources Regulation, GeoScience Victoria and Information Development Systems.
ERD staff are located in Melbourne at Spring Street, Collins Street and Nicholson Street, Bendigo, Ballarat, Benalla, Traralgon and other regional areas.
Key Stakeholders
ERD's key stakeholders are:
- Victorian Government Ministers.
- Local, State, Territory and Commonwealth Government organisations.
- Extractive, geothermal, mineral and petroleum industries and industry bodies, explorers and producers and their agents.
- The broad community including recreational prospectors, community / environment / special interest groups and students.
Operating Environment
The minerals, petroleum, geothermal and extractive industries make a major contribution to Victoria, generating some $5.4 billion per annum for the economy. Industry outputs include:
- Oil and gas from off-shore and on-shore areas
- Brown coal, predominantly used for electricity generation
- Gold
- Base metals
- Industrial minerals, such as gypsum and kaolin
- Rock, sand and clay, mainly for use in the building and construction industries
- Geothermal energy
- Carbon capture and storage
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