THE Queensland Government is investigating at least a dozen landholder complaints involving coal seam gas (CSG) company QGC issuing notice of entry letters in areas where it does not have mining exploration authority.
QGC employees also held a face-to-face meeting with least one landholder to discuss land access agreements after the incorrect notices were issued.
The government investigation is still at a preliminary stage, with Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation (DEEDI) officers obtaining statements from a number of affected landholders in the Dalby mining district.
A spokesperson for DEEDI said there were a "range of penalties" for breaches of the Queensland Government's Land Access Code.
QGC has told Queensland Country Life it was an "administration error" which caused notices to be "inadvertently" sent to 13 landholders over whose properties the company did not yet have exploration approval.
"These 'notices for preliminary activities on private land' asked for landholder consent for low-impact activities such as walking or driving on the properties for surveying," QGC wrote in a statement to Queensland Country Life.
"The company took action to rectify the error as soon as it became aware of it and is withdrawing the incorrect notices and contacting the landholders."
No preliminary activity has occurred on any of the affected properties. The government investigation came in the same week the CSG industry representative body, the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA), launched a public relations campaign, in part to address the concerns and win the trust of sceptical landholders.
Drillham South producer, Doug Walker, Springlea, is among the landholders to be inconvenienced by QGC's "administrative error".
He has also lodged a statement with DEEDI, after he was contacted by investigators from the government department about a fortnight ago.
QGC first sent him a notice of entry letter on June 6.
Within the next fortnight, he said he "reluctantly" met at his kitchen table with QGC land access workers to discuss conditions for exploration activities on his 2000-hectare cattle property.
"I only met with them because I thought I did not have a choice in the matter," he said. However, after not hearing from the company for a few weeks, he attended an AgForce CSG information session at Miles, where he discovered QGC had not been granted exploration rights over his property.
He said he contacted QGC the next day and they admitted the error, but it would have been "polite" if QGC had contacted him about the mistake before he discovered the truth at the AgForce meeting.
"The company is arrogant and they just seem to expect everything to go their way," he said.
"It does not matter how nice the land access bloke seems to be, property owners should get as much information as they can.
"Landholders should make sure they've done all the research and double-checked everything for themselves."
After his initial meeting with QGC, Mr Walker said the company only mailed him a single sheet to sign from the Environmental Authority, which usually runs to 30 pages and details government conditions to minimise environmental harm on land impacted by authorised petroleum activities.
After complaining to the company, Mr Walker said he was sent the complete document, which QGC called the "updated" Environmental Authority, in a letter sent on June 27.
Under section 496 of the Petroleum and Gas Act 2004, companies also have an obligation to provide each relevant owner or occupier of land with the relevant environmental authority documentation issued by the Department of Environment and Resource Management.
AgForce policy director, Drew Wagner, said this latest episode would further shake the confidence of landholders and the wider agriculture sector attempting to work alongside the rapidly expanding CSG industry.
"I would have thought it was a fairly simple operating procedure, but it seems to have gone awry," he said.
"If this company cannot determine where they are - and are not - able to prospect, AgForce would also be concerned about the rest of their procedures and processes.
"What would have happened if the landholders did not realise they were not under the company's tenure area? Who would have been liable if another issue had arisen from that?
"The single best position a landholder can be in is one that is educated where they understand their rights and obligations."
