Via The Australian:
A new $US1 billion ($1.3bn)-plus petrochemical plant proposed for development on Western Australia’s Burrup Peninsula is facing a major hurdle after oil and gas giant Chevron told the proponents it may not be able to supply gas to the project.
The Australian can reveal that a consortium of privately owned Coogee Chemicals, Japanese heavyweight Mitsubishi and conglomerate Wesfarmers is studying the merits of the plant, which would represent one of the biggest new industrial developments in WA since the end of the previous mining boom.
The partners have already secured an option over a site for the plant from the state government, but the plans have run into a roadblock after Chevron told the partners that its gas would not be available.
These volumes are only about 20% of the forecast as east coast shortage of 200Pj. If such a project can’t secure enough gas locally, how is a pipeline for the east coast going to do it economically? It will depend upon how big is the pipe, which hangs on all sorts of things to determine flow rate, but it’s not a very good sign.
All we need is domestic reservation to hold back 10% of east coast exports to crash the gas price, crash electricity prices, and put the decarbonisation plan back on track.
