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 Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline owned by the Australian Gas Infrastructure Group, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Infrastructure Holdings, has transported gas from the Pilbara to the South West of WA since 1984.
As Asia scrambles for gas, another Australian gas export plant is out of action, and the WA Government monitors the situation to ensure sufficient fuel for the state.
WA's competition regulator has accepted that competition from renewable energy will shrink the economic life of the Dampier to Bunbury gas pipeline by more than three decades.
