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 is the only state in Australia with rising emissions on the back of new LNG projects that will make meeting Paris Agreement emissions reductions very dificult.
Inpex’s Ichthys LNG project will cost $53 billion, $8 billion more than planned, and may not see substantial production until early next year in a blow to the Japanese operator that is waiting on the Darwin plant to more than double its cashflow.
Andrew Forrest is considering joining the world’s biggest LNG buyer to ship gas to NSW to alleviate the east coast gas shortage caused by soaring LNG exports from Queensland.
The Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects are now enjoying cash margins of more than $US30 a barrel at a $US50 price and production from the $111 billion mega-projects is expected to increase.
Buck-passing between oil giants over who pays for the upkeep of the ageing North West Shelf LNG plant has emerged as the biggest hurdle to Woodside sending its Browse gas to the facility.
