WA Government approves Pilbara gas project

The State Government has executed agreements to allow Woodside to fill the North West Shelf LNG facilities with gas from the Pluto fields, and to secure domestic gas supplies for Western Australia.

Woodside is building a new onshore pipeline to connect the North West Shelf and Pluto LNG facilities. Construction of the interconnector supports up to 320 construction jobs in the region and optimization of LNG and domestic gas production across the two sites.

Woodside may produce three million tonnes of LNG at the North West Shelf site over four years with gas from the Pluto fields, with production expected to commence in 2022.

Consistent with the WA Domestic Gas Policy, Woodside has committed to making the gas equivalent of 15 percent of its LNG exports available to the domestic market. This is in addition to its existing obligations under domestic gas commitment agreements for the North West Shelf and Pluto projects.

Woodside has also committed to making a further 45.6 petajoules of gas available to local consumers for supply from 2025 from its share of North West Shelf gas. The State will treat gas supplied under this additional commitment against Woodside's existing Pluto domestic gas commitment which was struck with the Carpenter Government in 2006.

To provide certainty for LNG industry investors and the local gas market, third parties seeking to process gas at the Pluto site will need an agreement in place consistent with the WA Domestic Gas Policy before their gas can be processed into LNG.