Australian Maritime Boundaries 2020: Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Zones

Geoscience Australia developed the Australian Maritime Boundaries 2020 (AMB2020) GIS data product, which digitally represents the scheduled and offshore areas defined under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006. The dataset covers Australia's entire marine jurisdiction, including waters adjacent to the mainland, offshore islands, and External Territories, with coordinates in the GDA94 datum. It was updated in August 2019 to incorporate changes from the 2018 Timor Sea Treaty.

Use Cases

• Mapping legal maritime zones for offshore petroleum exploration based on the Act-defined scheduled areas.
• Analyzing jurisdictional boundaries for greenhouse gas storage projects based on the defined offshore areas.
• Visualizing Australia's marine jurisdiction for international treaty compliance based on the updated Timor Sea Treaty boundaries.
• Conducting spatial analysis of maritime limits for environmental or regulatory impact assessments based on the geospatial coverage.

Strengths

• Data is produced by the authoritative national agency Geoscience Australia.
• Coverage includes the whole of Australia's marine jurisdiction, including external territories.
• Dataset is updated to reflect specific legal changes, such as the 2018 Timor Sea Treaty.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• In the event of inconsistency, the legal limits under the Act prevail over the digital representation.

Provenance

Source

Geoscience Australia, in consultation with other Commonwealth Government agencies.

Collection Method

Likely delineated from legal definitions and geographic measurements.

Time Range

Currency August 2019.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-05-05 01:34:51.273197; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Australia's marine jurisdiction, approximately between latitudes 8°S to 70°S and longitudes 39°E to 174°E.