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.
WA Premier Mark McGowan warned Alcoa to lift its game or face curtailed mining, but his successor Roger Cook slashed water supply protections after a possibly empty threat from the US miner.
Santos' decommissioning liability matches a quarter of its $22b value, but its disclosures to investors fared poorly against the latest accounting standards, according to an international survey.
Strike Energy's Stuart Nicholls regards the WA gas market as a dangerous place to be as new cheap supply comes in as the big resource players prepare to move away from fossil fuels.
