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 $2.3 billion-plus decommissioning on a WA nature reserve will be part-funded by the Federal and WA governments returning about half the royalties they received over six decades.
The company that thinks a damaging oil spill from its planned drilling near Scott Reef is "only a mere theoretical possibility" weeks ago accidentally released a cocktail of hydrocarbons, chemicals and water into the Indian Ocean.
There are serious concerns about lifting equipment and procedures on McDermott's offshore construction vessel DLV 2000 which is decommissioning the Stybarrow oil field near Ningaloo Reef.
Offshore regulator NOPSEMA has had enough of BHP's "limited action" and ordered the decommissioning of three fields, adding to the cleanup bill heading towards Woodside shareholders.
Santos and Chevron, through Varanus and Barrow Islands, have a big part to play in the clean up of 1000 oil and gas wells in WA, with about 300 ready to be plugged now.
If Woodside absorbs BHP's oil & gas assets new laws ensure the massive decommissioning liability falls to one of the companies, not the Australian taxpayer, unlike the Northern Endeavour.
Terrifying video shows an offshore lift that went badly wrong off the WA coast in early July endangering workers hanging off a platform and those on the vessel.
Buying BHP’s Australian oil and gas assets could allow Woodside to escape its lost decade, but its shareholders and Australian taxpayers should count their fingers after the handshake.
