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.
Peter Coleman's challenges: an ageing plant, high cost gas, partner churn and global forces making the LNG game tougher than anyone envisaged a few years ago.
If Woodside's argument that a reef's environmental benefit outweighs 400 tonnes of plastic in the ocean wins over NOPSEMA then leaving everything on the seabed could become the default option for Australia's oil and gas players.
Woodside's Pluto LNG plant has delivered less that one per cent of its gas to WA due to a 2006 WA Government deal that appeared generous then and looks feeble now.
Chevron has been denied a two-year free pass on Gorgon greenhouse gas emissions by the WA Government that could cost it more than $80 million, and there may be a future bill for Wheatstone as well.
KBR is weathering the oil price slump through diversification but senior exec Greg Conlon is worried oil and gas companies will impose excessive risk onto contractors when the industry recovers.
Shell's giant $US17B Prelude floating LNG is late, expensive, dirty and so far unreliable. An exclusive look at how a failed investment for Shell is a terrible deal for Australia.
If Scarborough, considered the most economic of Woodside's two projects, was uncompetitive before LNG prices crashed then plans will have to change on the Burrup Peninsula.
New WA projects will need to publish plans for net-zero emissions by 2050 as the WA Environmental Protection Authority ends a year-long battle with LNG industry.
Shell's Prelude floating LNG will keep burning excess gas during a production shutdown of many months, adding to its already high initial carbon footprint.
