Today I congratulated Woodside and BHP on their announcement of a final decision to proceed with the Scarborough natural gas project off the Western Australian coast.

The $16 billion project will create 3,200 Australian jobs during the peak construction phase, with the project being supported from Karratha, Learmonth and Perth. It will boost Australia’s GDP by $125 billion to 2063.

The project will include a new floating production unit, and gas will be transported to the Pluto LNG processing facility near Karratha in WA’s Pilbara region through a new 430km pipeline. The development of the Scarborough field will enable the construction of a second train at Pluto LNG.

Labor supports the resources sector and the jobs it creates all over Australia, in our big cities and in our regional towns. The Scarborough development represents a significant investment in WA communities, education, training and jobs.

Labor supports the resources sector’s decarbonisation ambitions, including BHP and Woodside’s commitments to net zero by 2050, and Woodside’s investment in developing Australia’s future hydrogen exports. Woodside has also invested more than $100 million across Australia through native tree planting offsets over the past 10 years and is investigating a 50-megawatt solar energy project on the Burrup Peninsula to power its Pluto project.

Australia’s natural gas is already helping the world decarbonise by displacing other, more carbon intensive fuels.

The Scarborough field is located approximately 375km off the coast of Western Australia contains and estimated 11.1 trillion cubic feet of dry gas. The Scarborough project has already received Commonwealth and WA State environmental approval.

MONDAY, 22 NOVEMBER 2021