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.
Australia is the one of the world's biggest producer of liquefied natural gas. The North West Shelf, Pluto, Gorgon, Wheatstone, Prelude and Ichthys LNG projects source their gas from the waters off WA.
WA's industrial greenhouse gas emissions are dominated by four products and a handful of companies, including a few that have managed to keep a low profile in the climate wars.
Shell's accountants predict the Dutch giant will never pay Australia for gas consumed at the Gorgon and Prelude LNG projects that it can sell for up to about $4 billion a year.
Most big WA carbon polluters including Chevron, Adbri, South32 and Woodside are wanting on emissions reduction targets, strategy and cash, according to benchmarking for the world's biggest investors.
The next Woodside chief executive will be the first to decide what to do apart from gas. Low-profile BHP Petroleum head Geraldine Slattery is a lead contender to take charge of this pivotal WA company.
Much of the $52 billion cost to decommission Australia's offshore oil and gas infrastructure will fall on the Federal Government via the tax system and work has started to boost industry collaboration and find cost savings.
Ichthys LNG is giving Inpex and Australia a huge carbon pollution problem that is likely to grow as the Japanese company looks to troublesome carbon capture and storage to limit the environmental and financial damage.
Singapore's Pavilion Energy will buy Australian LNG from Chevron with certified greenhouse emissions, in another sign that Asian buyers are favouring less carbon-intensive gas.
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.
Technical problems at Gorgon and Wheatstone will give Chevron Australia another year of reduced LNG production while US headquarters remains hesitant about the energy transition.
The WA safety regulator has told Chevron to turn down Australia's $3.1 billion showpiece Gorgon LNG carbon capture and storage system until problems are fixed, meaning carbon emissions will rise.
BP's Ironbark well off WA is a duster with "no significant hydrocarbon shows" killing hopes of gas supply to the North West Shelf LNG plant and crashing shares in Cue and NZ Oil and Gas.
The Conservation Council has launched legal action against Woodside and the WA Government that may reopen environmental approvals essential to the Scarborough and Browse LNG projects.
