Federal plan delivers three times more gas to WA than Browse

ANALYSIS

The Federal Government's domestic gas reservation scheme would solve WA's looming gas shortage with no need for Woodside to drill near the Scott Reef for its Browse project, according to a detailed analysis by Boiling Cold.

However, WA Premier Roger Cook is instead relying on pushing an uncertain Browse as essential and relying on gas giants Woodside and Chevron to "do the right thing" to ensure his state has sufficient affordable gas.

The Albanese Government wants gas exporters to supply the Australian market with gas equivalent to 20 per cent of their exports from 2027.

The effective application of this policy would deliver 3.5 times as much additional gas to WA as Woodside's proposed Browse development near the pristine Scott Reef.

The extra 3166 petajoules of domestic gas to 2045 is driven not just by the Federal Government reserving 20 per cent instead of WA's 15 per cent, but also by assuming that Canberra, unlike WA, implements its policy effectively.

WA's current gas export projects - Chevron's Gorgon and Wheatstone and Woodside's Pluto and North West Shelf - have supplied the equivalent of just eight per cent of their exports to WA, according to the DomGas Alliance of major gas consumers.

Just achieving the 15 per cent targeted by WA's Domestic Gas Policy delivers an extra 1326 petajoules of gas to WA industry, miners and power generators - substantially more than the 913 petajoules from Browse.

Boiling Cold performed the analysis with the best publicly available data and reasonable, informed assumptions. It conservatively ignores the large amount of gas that exporters owe the local market due to past underdelivery.

The full analysis can be downloaded below.

Other approaches could reasonably produce slightly different results.

However, given the vast gulf between the estimated gas volumes under the national scheme and those from the Browse development, it would not alter the conclusion that Woodside's development is not required for the local economy.

Cook ignores the national fix

Just last week, WA Premier Roger Cook framed WA's gas problem as a choice between Woodside's development of Browse and fracking for gas in WA's remote Kimberley.

“We all need to be realistic about the idea that you can just somehow reject Browse,” Cook told The Australian Financial Review.

“There’s a big debate around Browse at the moment, but I can tell you that all the predictions are that there’s about a Browse-sized hole in our energy supplies in the early 2030s,” Cook said, without which WA would be "forced to frack" the Kimberley.

The looming hole in WA's gas supply is actually bigger than Browse. Respected gas sector consultant EnergyQuest cautioned in 2025 that Browse would only slow, not halt, the increase in gas prices, which have already doubled over the past five years.

Browse cannot deliver cheaper gas to WA industry, but 3.5 times more volume from the Federal policy almost certainly would, improving the viability of crucial industries, such as critical minerals processing and fertiliser production.

The only winners from Cook's choice to ignore the opportunity presented by Canberra's policy are the state's largely foreign-owned gas export projects.

Woodside keeps a central pillar in its fight to win social license for Browse, and all the exporters avoid having to divert more gas to the local market, where it will fetch lower prices.

A spokesman for the Premier said his government took compliance with its domestic gas reservation policy seriously

“It’s the government and community’s strong expectation that Woodside, Chevron and all gas producers do the right thing and provide domestic gas to WA in accordance with the policy," he said.

Boiling Cold asked the Premier if expecting Woodside and Chevron to do the right thing to ensure WA has enough gas was extremely naive. No response was provided.

The Premier was also asked if he would support the implementation of the national policy in WA, given it can solve WA’s gas shortage without risking drilling near Scott Reef or fracking the Kimberley.

His spokesman said the state government had been assured by the Commonwealth that WA’s policy would be compatible with the national approach, and that it would wait for the Commonwealth to provide more detail before offering further comment.

Problems with solutions

Delivering the gas WA needs will require more than the Federal Parliament passing legislation.

The gas companies will have to expand their domestic gas plants and pipelines, and bring forward future offshore drilling.

They will cry poor and say this will be expensive, and it will be. But the costs must be weighed against their financial strength.

In 2025, Chevron alone made a $2.5 billion profit from its 47 per cent stake in Gorgon and 64 per cent stake in Wheatstone. That was a bad year - the 2024 profit was twice as high, and in 2026, the US major will benefit from the US-Iran war throttling its competitors.

Approvals will be an issue, but Cook could use his much vaunted State Development Act to speed things up.

Crucially, the 20 per cent requirement is likely beyond what WA needs. This would allow negotiations that reward producers who move quickly with slightly reduced obligations.

A solution would be complex but achievable.

In contrast, relying on Browse is not only insufficient but also problematic, as it may never happen.

Shell exited the project in 2023 due to likely low financial returns and high carbon emissions.

Browse does not have WA or Federal environmental approvals.

In 2024, the WA Environmental Protection Authority's preliminary view was that it was unacceptable due to the threat to Scott Reef from oil spills, risks to pygmy blue whales and the possibility of turtle nesting sites sinking below sea level.

After years of negotiation, the Browse joint venture has not been able to agree on a deal with the North West Shelf joint venture to process its gas for export.

That task is now harder after Japan's INPEX bought into Browse and likely intends to reconfigure the project to send the gas to its export plant in Darwin.

It is simply irresponsible to stake WA's economy on the mirage of Browse.

Who will supply the extra gas?

Chevron's Gorgon, Australia's largest gas export project, will provide the most additional gas under the Federal 20 per cent reservation scheme.

In 2014, Chevron, Shell and ExxonMobil decided Gorgon, producing 15 million tonnes a year (MTPA) of LNG, was a worthwhile investment. It included a 300 TJ/day domestic gas plant, just enough to meet WA's 15% obligation.

However, the plant has produced an average of 16.8 MTPA of LNG in the past three financial years, according to annual reports filed with WA's environment regulator.

To meet WA's 15 per cent target, Gorgon should deliver 340 TJ/day of gas to WA, but in 2025 it supplied just 250 TJ/day.

More importantly, under the 2003 Barrow Island Act, an earlier WA Labor Government did not impose an ongoing obligation for Gorgon to supply the local market. Instead, there is a requirement to deliver 2000 PJ that will be fulfilled in about 2038.

After that, under the present arrangements, WA's largest domestic gas supplier could turn off the tap.

Other additional gas comes from Wheatstone and Woodside's new Scarborough gas project, meeting a 20 per cent obligation instead of 15 per cent.

In the early years, there will also be significant additional volumes from Pluto that, to date, has only delivered the equivalent of four per cent of its exports to the local market.

The Calculations

The complete data, references, assumptions and calculations behind this analysis can be downloaded:

Before entering journalism, Peter Milne worked in oil and gas for 25 years. This experience, which at Chevron included leading the economic analysis of the Gorgon project and helping negotiate the Wheatstone domestic gas agreement with the WA Government, provides the expertise to support this level of analysis.

Note that consulting companies that provide analysis to governments and industry for publication never provide this level of transparency.