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.
Woodside has told investors it can afford to bury CO2 from its Browse LNG project just months after telling regulators it was a "high-risk, high-cost" option.
Woodside had planned for 2020 and 2021 to be years of growth but now the Scarborough and Browse LNG projects are deferred and $US20.4 billion slashed from this years' budget as it joins its peers in survival mode.
Shell's Prelude floating LNG, already besieged with safety and reliability issues, has produced 2.3 million tonnes of greenhouse gases for one cargo of LNG.
WA LNG producers Woodside and Chevron, beset by low prices and COVID-19 work restrictions, are maintaining dividends to shareholders and gas to customers as they shed workers, with unions describing Woodside’s actions as “brutal, cold, and unnecessary.”
Delay to Woodside's big growth bet on the "Burrup Hub" Scarborough and Browse LNG projects looks more likely with Woodside warned not to overspend as its partners trim their budgets.
Chevron boss Mike Wirth is not distracted by renewables as he pushes for more and lower cost production and looks to move gas through Woodside's Scarborough project.
