It sounds like you don't understand what they were trying to do....

It sounds like you don't understand what they were trying to do. They were trying to vary their permit conditions so they didn't have to undertake everything (probably because they didn't have the money or the time). Instead.. NOPTA said no. And they are now forced to undertake the work program as it stands:

Mr Patrick said this decision would mean Bight Petroleum would have to complete work including seismic surveys and the drilling of an exploration well prior to July which looked to be highly unlikely. https://www.portlincolntimes.com.au/story/7130580/win-in-bight-fight/

Ask yourself this South918, why would NOPTA want them to do the whole work program if they could have just approved the variation to do part of the work program? (with that logic NOPTA is asking them to do 'more work', not less).

And the whole reason we brought this up was because applications like this need to be supported with technical reasons. And according to MMR, they didn't de-risk the planned PEP-11 drill enough, and previously the Joint Venture were trying to do 3D-seismic in order to de-risk the drill. Therefore, the company basically admitted PEP-11 requires a 3D-seismic to de-risk the drill, now they have backflipped and said 3D-seismic is not required for "reasons"... (and if you don't have valid reasons, NOPTA will rightfully reject your application, and saying the community protests the 3D-seismic is not a valid reason according to the NOPTA guidelines).