An expert, independent of government and industry, explains how prolonged industrial activity on the Burrup Peninsula in WA endangers an Australian marvel.
The Perth-based LNG specialist operates the North West Shelf and Pluto LNG projects and is developing the Scarborough and Browse fields. It also has a 50 per cent stake in ExxonMobil's Bass Strait operation and substantial interests in the US and Mexico.
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's Pluto LNG plant has delivered less that one per cent of its gas to WA due to a 2006 WA Government deal that appeared generous then and looks feeble now.
In a decade hydrogen made with renewable power may be cheaper than making it from gas and offsetting the emissions according to an independent expert analysis but Woodside thinks gas has 30 years left.
If Scarborough, considered the most economic of Woodside's two projects, was uncompetitive before LNG prices crashed then plans will have to change on the Burrup Peninsula.
Woodside is struggling to portray itself as both green and gassy with mixed messages about carbon emissions, the threat from renewables and why all the way with LNG is a sound long term strategy.
New WA projects will need to publish plans for net-zero emissions by 2050 as the WA Environmental Protection Authority ends a year-long battle with LNG industry.
Woodside has dropped plans for a 12-week work roster blasted by unions as "catastrophically unsafe" and will move to a temporary roster of two weeks of isolation, four weeks work and two weeks at home to manage COVID-19 risk.
Offshore unions have welcomed a deal with Inpex that adds two-weeks of isolation to the roster and gives half-pay to stood-down workers but slammed what they say is a Woodside proposal to work offshore for 12 weeks straight.
