Commonwealth Consolidated Acts Commonwealth Consolidated Acts(1) This section applies if the tender block licence notice relates to blocks in an external territory offshore area.
(2) The responsible Commonwealth Minister (as the Joint Authority for that offshore area):
(a) must refuse an application if the applicant does not do what is required by sections 77 to 79; and
(b) may provisionally grant an exploration licence to an applicant whose application has not been refused under paragraph (a).
Note: Under section 88, the grant of the licence cannot be effective before it is registered (see section 333 for registration). The grant will not be registered until it has been properly accepted (see section 84 for proper acceptance ).
(3) The responsible Commonwealth Minister may provisionally grant a licence under subsection (2) even if there is only one application that is not refused under paragraph (2)(a).
(4) When provisionally granting a licence under subsection (2), the responsible Commonwealth Minister must follow the procedure and apply the criteria specified in the tender block licence notice published for the licence under section 74.