BP puts $1b Kwinana hydrogen and clean fuel projects on ice
The two projects will be "recycled" amid BP's concerns about costs and government policy.
The 8.9 million tonnes a year Wheatstone LNG plant near Onslow operated by Chevron started production in 2017.
Woodside will buy Chevron's one-sixth stake in the North West Shelf project and relinquish its stake in the Wheatstone LNG project to the US major.
Chevron's Wheatstone LNG is in the firing line of a new approach from the WA Environmental Protection Authority that forced big emissions cuts from the Waitsia gas project.
WA's industrial greenhouse gas emissions are dominated by four products and a handful of companies, including a few that have managed to keep a low profile in the climate wars.
Technical problems at Gorgon and Wheatstone will give Chevron Australia another year of reduced LNG production while US headquarters remains hesitant about the energy transition.
Chevron has another pressure vessel to worry about, this time on the Wheatstone platform, after Gorgon LNG production was slashed this year to fix faulty welds.
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.
Chevron has paid the Australian Taxation Office $US654 million ($866 million) under a partial settlement of its dispute with the tax office over intercompany loans and slashed the interest rate it charged its Australian subsidiary.
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.
Chevron's Wheatstone LNG project may need to offset more than one million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions each year if restrictions that were removed by Colin Barnett in 2013 are reinstated.
Chevron is challenged to meet Wheatstone LNG first LNG target as it continues fixing piping systems on the offshore platform.
Woodside chief executive Peter Coleman hopes the ramp-up of Wheatstone goes well as the Perth-based group braces for a big reduction in its domestic gas sales in 2017
Chevron’s budget and schedule for the Wheatstone LNG project face questions from significant unplanned work underway on the project’s offshore platform.
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