Woodside sold the project to an insubstantial company to avoid a few hundred million in decommissioning costs: now it and its competitors will pay the price.
The Woodside-operated North West Shelf project near Karratha exported Australia's first LNG cargo in 1989 and now has four gas export trains and a domestic gas plant.
In 2024 and 2025, respectively, the WA and Federal governments approved its operation until 2070.
Santos is now the biggest supplier of gas to WA and the future may depend on the Perth Basin after the State's almost four decades of reliance on Australia's first LNG plant.
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 chief executive Peter Coleman told investors his Browse and Scarborough LNG projects stood up with a $US40/t carbon price, but the fine print was a different story.
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.
