The failure of Cliff Head's owners, Pilot Energy and Triangle Energy, to meet payroll does not bode well for their ability to pay the $200 million decommissioning cost.
Pilot Energy and Triangle Energy - two listed minnows with no revenue - may struggle to afford to decommission the Cliff Head platform off the WA coast.
Equus Energy floated on the ASX in December 2025. Before that, it was called Western Gas: a small company that bought the Equus gas fields in the Carnarvon Basin from US company Hess in 2017 to develop an LNG project.
If Western Gas' Equus LNG project does not take off in these tough times neither the small company nor regulator NOPTA have an answer to how making safe the wells is paid for.
