For Commonwealth waters, under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Safety) Regulations 2009 (OPGGS), a facility must have a registered operator. Similar operator nomination, registration and deregistration provisions apply in designated coastal waters where States/NT have made legislation that mirrors Commonwealth legislation. Please note that the operator nomination requirements for pipelines which traverse Designated Coastal Waters may have different requirements depending on that State's regulations

The registered operator is the person who has day to day management and control of the facility. The facility owner or titleholder may nominate a party to be the operator of the facility.

Nominations must be submitted on standard nomination forms available from NOPSEMA for facilities and for pipelines. NOPSEMA decides on the acceptance or rejection of nominated parties as operators and also maintains the register of operators. NOPSEMA's decision regarding the operator is made using the Guidance Note Operator Register: Criteria for Registration and Deregistration. The standard nomination form must be accompanied by a completed worksheet that provides an opportunity for the nominator to analyse the proposed operator arrangements against the NOPSEMA operator registration decision criteria which is: will the nominated operator have "day to day management and control" [OPGGS Regulation 2.3(1)].

NOPSEMA's indicative performance measure for the acceptance or rejection of an Operator nomination is 30 days after NOPSEMA has received the completed nomination form and the completed worksheet from the operator.

Nominations can be submitted to NOPSEMA via the following methods: