An expert, independent of government and industry, explains how prolonged industrial activity on the Burrup Peninsula in WA endangers an Australian marvel.
Adelaide-based Santos owns the Varanus Island and Devil Creek domestic gas projects in the North West and is developing the Dorado oil field off WA and the Barossa LNG project into Darwin.
A year after Inpex rejected carbon capture and storage at Ichthys LNG as unaffordable it is an essential element in its new drive to slash emissions by 2030.
Chevron, Santos and Kerry Stokes' BCI Minerals are battling in court over responsibility for gas pipelines supplying 40 per cent of the WA market that traverse the $780 million Mardie salt project.
South Korea, Japan and China's tightened climate goals will crunch Australian thermal coal, make LNG investments harder and possibly kill Santos' Barossa LNG project.
Prospects for LNG are under a shadow if Paris Agreement emissions cuts are pursued, according to the IEA, leaving Woodside and Santos in a very dark place.
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.
Concerns about potential oil leaks caused the safety regulator to bar workers from an area of the MODEC Venture 11 floating production facility off WA for over a week.
Macquarie and Brookfield will have to sell exploration potential in their $4 billion float of Quadrant Energy amid concern its domestic gas plants could run dry in as little as six years.
