Alcoa chief executive Bill Oplinger told Wall Street the US aluminium specialist could take strong action to boost profits from alumina, most of which it refines in Western Australia.
South West WA's power grid reached a record 91 per cent peak renewable energy share in December - driven by 1,225 MW of new battery storage - while wholesale power prices fell 13 per cent and carbon emissions dropped 15 per cent as coal and gas generation declined.
The green light for Black Mountain Energy comes just months after Federal experts said its environmental risk assessment was "limited and disjointed" and reached "largely unsupported" conclusions.
Barrow Island is a Class A nature reserve 70km off the coast of Western Australia's Pilbara region, free of many introduced predators and weeds common on the mainland. It is home to Chevron's Gorgon LNG processing plant and its shuttered onshore oil fields.
On July 18 Chevron will be millions of tonnes short of required CO2 injection at Gorgon LNG. If the WA Government stands firm the carbon credit bill could approach $100 million.
Chevron's Gorgon should be a showpiece of carbon capture and storage but five years after first LNG it is still not working properly and has another five-month extension from the regulator.
Gorgon LNG's carbon emissions will jump by more than one million tonnes a year until Chevron fixes an underground pressure management problem that caused WA's safety regulator to curtail CO2 injection by two-thirds.
The WA safety regulator has told Chevron to turn down Australia's $3.1 billion showpiece Gorgon LNG carbon capture and storage system until problems are fixed, meaning carbon emissions will rise.
Chevron's ambitious injection of Gorgon CO2 shaped the $US54B LNG project and a year after starting up 2.5 years late its long-term performance remains to be proved.
