Petroleum Exploration and Evaluation Survey

The Petroleum Exploration and Evaluation Survey is conducted every quarter by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). It collects important data from individuals and private sector companies with licences to undertake petroleum exploration in Australia. Your participation in this survey provides figures essential for producing statistics which are used by government and industry analysts to inform decision making, policy formulation and planning.

Statistics for Petroleum Exploration are released on a quarterly basis and are published in Mineral and Petroleum Exploration.

The questions cover expenditure on petroleum exploration and evaluation in Australia, significant impacts on exploration and drilling activities, and engagements in Joint Venture arrangements. This survey also asks for information about expenditure on exploration and evaluation in Australian states and territories by:

• lease type
• onshore or offshore expenditure
• drilling or other expenditure.

Yes. The information in this survey is collected under the authority of the Census and Statistics Act 1905. The Act obliges you to provide the information requested. Under the Act, staff of the ABS are obliged to maintain the confidentiality and privacy of information provided. Breaching this requirement can result in heavy penalties, including fines and imprisonment.

Yes, if your business has undertaken exploration activities or care and maintenance during the quarter, please complete the whole survey. If you are the managing operator of an Unincorporated Joint Venture (UJV), please complete the form on behalf of the whole UJV.

Yes. Industry, business and government users of Petroleum Exploration and Evaluation statistics need the most accurate and timely information possible so they can make informed decisions.

The ABS takes the privacy and security of your information very seriously.

We use your survey responses to produce statistics, which we release as summary data that does not identify any business or organisation. In some cases, detailed statistics might relate to a single holding. If you are concerned your holding could be identified, you can ask us to further aggregate your data.

The ABS Privacy Policy for Statistical Information outlines how we use your personal information and keep it safe. To view our policy visit the Privacy page.

No. There is no provision within the Census and Statistics Act 1905 to reimburse businesses or organisations for the cost of providing statistical information. In line with other national statistical organisations throughout the world, individuals, businesses and other organisations are asked to supply information for statistical purposes without compensation. It is only with the support of people like you that we can continue to produce the statistics that inform Australia's important decisions.

Each quarter, the ABS sends correspondence with a code to access the latest quarter’s survey form. Simply go online to the ABS Survey Account to set up an account or if you already have one, log in and add your Form Access Code to retrieve the form. You will only need to add a Form Access Code once. For future cycles, the Petroleum Exploration and Evaluation form will automatically be added to your account. The account is a secure service that allows a form to be accessed as many times as is needed before final submission. The same account can be used to access and answer future surveys.

If you are unable to complete your survey online, please call us on 1800 816 851 (+61 2 6252 8794 overseas) and one of our team will assist you.

For more information on completing our surveys online, help is available on our Survey Account Help page. This page provides assistance with technical difficulties and includes frequently asked questions which assist in creating and using the ABS Survey Account.

If you are having trouble creating or accessing your account, completing the survey online, or have lost your Form Access Code, please call us on 1800 816 851 (+61 2 6252 8794 overseas) and one of our team will be happy to assist you.

If you would like more general information about participating in one of our surveys, please see our Survey Participant Information page.

If you have received a reminder letter about completing this survey, it is likely that you have returned the survey at the same time that we issued the reminder letter. If you wish to confirm this, please call one of our team on 1800 816 851 (+61 2 6252 8794 overseas) and we will check the information against our records.

We provide statistics free of charge on our website. Statistics produced from this survey are published in Mineral and Petroleum Exploration, Australia.

If you have participated in this survey, or any of our other surveys, we want to hear about your experience. We value your feedback and will use it to improve how we work with our survey participants.

You can use our feedback form to provide us with feedback. For this survey, please select the option "Participation in an ABS Business Survey".

For help, or more information about this survey, please call us on 1800 816 851 (+61 2 6252 8794 overseas) Monday to Friday, 9am to 7pm AEST. 

For help outside these hours, please leave a message with your contact details and we will return your call as soon as possible.