"The government is allowing Alcoa to do whatever they friggin want," according to a long-term campaigner for better regulation of WA's alumina refineries.
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.
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.
Woodside has told investors it can afford to bury CO2 from its Browse LNG project just months after telling regulators it was a "high-risk, high-cost" option.
Woodside had planned for 2020 and 2021 to be years of growth but now the Scarborough and Browse LNG projects are deferred and $US20.4 billion slashed from this years' budget as it joins its peers in survival mode.
WA LNG producers Woodside and Chevron, beset by low prices and COVID-19 work restrictions, are maintaining dividends to shareholders and gas to customers as they shed workers, with unions describing Woodside’s actions as “brutal, cold, and unnecessary.”
Delay to Woodside's big growth bet on the "Burrup Hub" Scarborough and Browse LNG projects looks more likely with Woodside warned not to overspend as its partners trim their budgets.
