Woodside sold the project to an insubstantial company to avoid a few hundred million in decommissioning costs: now it and its competitors will pay the price.
WA Premier Mark McGowan warned Alcoa to lift its game or face curtailed mining, but his successor Roger Cook slashed water supply protections after a possibly empty threat from the US miner.
The WA Government expects no new coal or gas-fired power generation in the South-West will ever be built but those looking for clues to the future of Collie’s existing coal-fired power stations will have to wait for a plan to be released later this year.
Woodside is struggling to portray itself as both green and gassy with mixed messages about carbon emissions, the threat from renewables and why all the way with LNG is a sound long term strategy.
New WA projects will need to publish plans for net-zero emissions by 2050 as the WA Environmental Protection Authority ends a year-long battle with LNG industry.
Shell's Prelude floating LNG will keep burning excess gas during a production shutdown of many months, adding to its already high initial carbon footprint.
Woodside has told investors it can afford to bury CO2 from its Browse LNG project just months after telling regulators it was a "high-risk, high-cost" option.
Shell's Prelude floating LNG, already besieged with safety and reliability issues, has produced 2.3 million tonnes of greenhouse gases for one cargo of LNG.
Chevron boss Mike Wirth is not distracted by renewables as he pushes for more and lower cost production and looks to move gas through Woodside's Scarborough project.
