In The Hague this week, Australia worked hard to minimise the legal liability of major emitters and fossil fuel exporters for their contribution to climate change.
The WA Department of Energy, Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety promotes and regulates the State's mining and petroleum industries, produces energy policy, and provides safety and consumer protection regulation to other sectors.
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.
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.
Woodside has found corrosion during a shutdown of the North West Shelf's LNG Train 4 that potentially is a serious concern. It is understood Woodside is now inspecting other trains for the problem.
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.
Welders will have to grind out and redo repairs at Gorgon performed to an incorrect procedure provided by Chevron and the delay could cost up to $250M.
Chevron faces shutting Gorgon LNG down to make it safe after WA safety regulators responded to reports of thousands of cracks in propane-filled vessels.
Chevron has "put additional mitigations in place" to protect workers while it mulls what to do with two giant LNG trains operating at Gorgon that could have defective welds.
Chevron intends to have cracked propane vessels fixed and Gorgon LNG back in full production by September as it awaits inspection by the safety regulator.
The safety and economic stakes for Gorgon LNG are high as WA Government inspectors soon head to Barrow Island to check on Chevron's cracked pressure vessels.
Safety regulators knew nothing of cracked pressure vessels at Chevron's Gorgon LNG plant until alerted by media reports and now plan to inspect the equipment themselves.
