The green light for Black Mountain Energy comes just months after Federal experts said its environmental risk assessment was "limited and disjointed" and reached "largely unsupported" conclusions.
If the US miner is found to have mined too close to a large jarrah tree, it would trigger an automatic cancellation of its right to mine much of its lease.
Chevron's Gorgon LNG project on Barrow Island began operating in 2016 has the world's largest carbon capture and storage system dedicated to emissions reduction.
The US giant pretends Labor's policies are thwarting the expansion of its Gorgon and Wheatstone gas plants, which it does not plan to do anyway, to gain leverage with governments.
The US giant, which made $8 billion in Australia in 2024, is forcing its subcontractors to follow its example and send Australian engineering jobs overseas.
WA Premier Roger Cook's core "Made in WA" election policy will be tested by his use of local content provisions to keep Chevron's WA engineers working in WA.
On July 18 Chevron will be millions of tonnes short of required CO2 injection at Gorgon LNG. If the WA Government stands firm the carbon credit bill could approach $100 million.
A $6B high-tech subsea compression system will keep Chevron's Gorgon LNG plant supplied with gas but little of the massive spend will occur in Australia.
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.
Shell, Exxon and Chevron are big players in Australian oil and gas and being forced to decarbonise sooner will affect their local operations, with a possible king hit to Prelude.
Safety regulator WorkSafe does not know when it will receive test results so four workers on Chevron's Gorgon LNG plant will know if they have received an unsafe exposure to toxic mercury.
