New Standard was delisted by the ASX in 2019 after a lengthy suspension, following revelations it did not have the cash to decommission five exploration wells or an airstrip it built in 2011 and 2012.
The Canning Basin player partnered with ConocoPhillips to explore the onshore region for what it hoped was a 40-billion-barrel oil resource.
In 2012 when two wells, Nicolay-1 and Gibb Maiitland-1, came up dry ConocoPhillips left the project handing decommissioning liabilities to New Standard.
The company, led by Beijing-based CEO Xiaofeng Liu, was placed into liquidation with David Quin from PCI Partners appointed by the Victoria Supreme Court this month.
It has left the wells and obligations to properly plug and abandon and rehabilitate them, to the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety and the WA government.
Over recent years the company has been issued multiple orders by the Department to rehabilitate its failed oil operation.
Each time, New Standard dragged its feet before finally blaming COVID-19 restrictions which had prevented it from travelling on site.
In one of its final quarterly activities reports on the ASX, New Standard revealed just how deep its financial problems gas become.
It said it would not be able to meet its legal environmental obligations until it had "significant funding."
DMIRS told Energy News two years ago it would penalise the company under the Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Resources Act.
Under the Act the Department could fine the company $10,000 per day, per offence.
New Standard would also be liable for a $110,000 fine for putting the physical environment at risk.
The company had just $394,000 cash in the bank.
This is considerably low when the cost of abandonment, for five wells an airfield and other infrastructure, could reach in the region of tens of millions of dollars
With New Standard now bankrupt and in liquidation, the cost of rehabilitating the old wells and airstrip will land at WA taxpayers feet.
In September, DMIRS announced it was seeking comment from industry about proposed changes to decommissioning laws.
A spokesperson for WA resources minister Bill Johnston refused to be drawn on whether the legislative changes had come about as a result of New Standard.
It will update three key frameworks, namely the Petroleum and Geothermal Energy Resources Act 1967, the Petroleum Pipelines Act 1969, and the Petroleum (Submerged Lands) Act 1982.
The first two cover onshore activities, while the latter covers oil and gas operations in state waters.
DMIRS said while the oil and gas industry had "operated well over a number of years," as more assets come to toward the end of life, it had concerns that the state could incur decommissioning and rehabilitation liabilities.
"Accordingly, there is an inherent need to ensure clear decommissioning and rehabilitation standards and expectations are established."
Unlike the mining industry, the oil and gas industry does not have a state-run rehabilitation fund to prevent taxpayers from picking up the bill when private ventures go bust.
The state government did consider a pooled fund similar to the Mining Rehabilitation Fund, however abandoned plans to introduce it in 2021.
DMIRS was contacted for comment.
