If the US miner is found to have mined too close to a large jarrah tree, it would trigger an automatic cancellation of its right to mine much of its lease.
Chevron's CO2 injection on Barrow Island for the Gorgon LNG project is WA's only carbon capture and storage project. It is the world's largest CCS project dedicted to burying greenhouse gases, not increasing oil production.
After a big splash four years ago and little publicity since, Woodside has teamed up with Japanese partners to promote a smaller, later, and dirtier hydrogen plant.
Australian LNG producers are under pressure on emissions and decommissioning, and Santos wants to tackle both problems in one swoop at Bayu Undan, but it needs everyone to play along.
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.
Shell, Exxon and Chevron are big players in Australian oil and gas and being forced to decarbonise sooner will affect their local operations, with a possible king hit to Prelude.
In this week's budget the Morrison Government ignored clean energy and instead took a long-odds bet that carbon capture and storage will allow fossil fuels to carry on untouched by climate concerns.
If CO2 from Yara's Pilbara ammonia plant is buried WA could ship a clean fuel to displace coal in JERA's Japanese power stations, but underground carbon storage has its doubters.
