Chevron: Australia’s second wave of LNG investment at risk

Chevron, which is building the giant Gorgon and Wheatstone projects in Australia, said the second wave of LNG investment for the country is at serious risk of not happening.

“The reasons are many and complex, but as noted by a range of organisations, a major contributor is Australia’s falling international competitiveness. This is against a backdrop of rising competition from other global LNG suppliers,” Chevron Australia Managing Director Roy Krzywosinski told the APPEA 2015 conference.

According to Krzywosinski, there has not been a final investment decision on an Australian LNG development since 2012.

“You may be familiar with research from the Business Council of Australia which found the cost of building a greenfield project in Australia was 40 percent more expensive than the US Gulf Coast,” he said.

“As we look ahead, we need to claw back that competitiveness and create the investment environment here in Australia that helped us harness the gas boom in the first place,” he added.

Speaking about the Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects he said that a new study found that last year nearly 19,000 people were employed on the two giant LNG projects.

Across the life of these projects, the preliminary results suggest the total contribution to Gross Domestic Product from Gorgon will be in the vicinity of 400 billion dollars, and from Wheatstone about 150 billion dollars, Krzywosinski said.

LNG World News Staff; Image: Chevron Australia