Multinational gas giant Chevron today announced its final investment decision in stage-three of its Gorgon gas project, meaning it will ship millions more tonnes of Australian gas overseas every year and further fuel the climate crisis.
Conservation Council of WA (CCWA) Executive Director Matt Roberts said the news follows revelations that Chevron’s much-hyped Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) scheme at Gorgon continues to fail — having just logged its weakest year since beginning in 2019.
He said this expanded facility would connect two untapped gas fields to Chevron’s issue-plagued processing facility at Barrow Island.
“Our state could be a world leader in renewable energy, powering industry with clean, cheap wind and solar. Instead, we’re falling behind the rest of the country on renewables, while we let multinational corporations extract our gas and export it for corporate profits,” Mr Roberts said.
“This decision comes days after it was revealed that Chevron’s CCS - carbon dumping scheme - at Barrow Island continues to fail. Six years after attempts at CCS began, Chevron is capturing less carbon than ever, and yet, they expect us to trust them to operate responsibly.
“Companies like Chevron send our gas overseas while giving peanuts back in terms of royalties and taxes.
“An expansion of Gorgon would be disastrous for the Western Australian economy, not to mention the world’s climate.
“Chevron claims the expansion will provide highly skilled jobs in Australia, but the gas industry is so capital intensive that in reality, it provides fewer jobs than any other sector.
“The gas industry is — and will always remain — a small employer, no matter how many new projects are approved. Meanwhile, it was revealed earlier this year that Chevron was sending Western Australian jobs overseas and failing to meet the WA government’s local employment obligations.
“Chevron also claims it’s shoring up domestic supply to meet a gas shortfall, yet it sends vast quantities of our gas overseas that could instead be used in Western Australia.
“The solution to so-called gas shortages is to keep Australian gas for local use while we get on with transitioning to renewables, not to approve more export projects.
“Gas is a dangerous fossil fuel. A leaked report by Deloitte commissioned by the WA government recently showed that relying on gas risks delaying the transition to renewables, not accelerating it.
“The leaked Deloitte report answers the question of the government's current select committee inquiry into the role of Western Australia in the global effort on decarbonisation – it found that more gas displaces renewables, not coal, and leads to increased emissions. The only true pathway to decarbonisation is through less gas.
“There is no credible case for ongoing gas expansion in this state, and the leaked Deloitte report showed that demand for gas from our existing trading partners is set to fall dramatically in coming years.
“Nobody ‘needs’ our gas – they’re just marketing lines from the gas industry; yet the WA government seems more than willing to repeat these lines.”