According to the West Australian, Wheatstone could be forced to offset more than 1 MMt of greenhouse gas emissions each year if the WA Government reintroduces restrictions that were removed by former premier Colin Barnett in 2013.
A Chevron spokesperson said “the company is disappointed at the State Government’s action because Wheatstone emissions were already regulated by the Federal Government.”?
When the project was approved in 2011, Chevron had to show it had minimised greenhouse emissions as far as practicable, with the performance assessed every two years, as well as offsets required to be at least equal to the carbon dioxide in the reservoir gas piped to the LNG plant at Onslow.
Chevron aims to produce 8.9 MMt/a of LNG through two trains to be supplied by permits WA-235-P and WA-17-R, located in the Wheatstone field, offshore Western Australia.
The field is situated 145 km off the Pilbara coast, approximately 100 km north of Barrow Island and 225 km north of Onslow, with the two permits estimated to contain 4.5 Tcf of gas.
Joint venture interests in the project include Chevron (operator, 64.14 per cent), Woodside Petroleum (13 per cent), KUFPEC (13.4 per cent), PE Wheatstone (partly-owned by JERA, 8 per cent) and Kyushu Electric Power Company (1.46 per cent).