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.
BP, unlike Chevron, remains committed to Woodside-operated North West Shelf LNG as it waits to drill nearby Ironbark, but Browse is unlikely to meet its investment criteria.
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.
Shell's Prelude floating LNG has stumbled on the road back to production after a failed seal caused subsea wells to be shut-in days after they were opened.
The wells are open and safety inspectors arriving as Shell looks to recommence LNG production from its problematic Prelude floating LNG vessel off the WA coast.
Chevron's problems at Gorgon LNG from faulty welds years ago in a South Korean factory continue with delays to repairing the first of three trains to be fixed.
Chevron's slice of the North West Shelf LNG project is touted as ideal for infrastructure investors. It is the opposite - highly risky, complex and dysfunctional.
After action by safety regulators Chevron will progressively shut down all LNG trains at Gorgon to fix faulty welds in propane-filled pressure vessels.
WA Premier Mark McGowan has extended WA's successful gas reservation policy to all onshore gas - except Waitsia that is backed by a powerful media boss Kerry Stokes
Chevron's ambitious injection of Gorgon CO2 shaped the $US54B LNG project and a year after starting up 2.5 years late its long-term performance remains to be proved.
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.
