“I will be promoting the virtues of our resource-rich State to Korean political and business leaders, particularly WA’s burgeoning export industry," he said.
"I expect they will find not just our business credentials especially attractive, but our stable political environment, our security, reliability of supply and our robust economy.”
Korea is currently seeking long-term supply of LNG to meet its growing energy needs and Western Australian LNG projects were invited to bid for this contract. Korea is the world's second largest LNG market, importing more than 20 million tonnes of LNG a year.
Kogas is looking to write contracts for the supply of up to 6 million tonnes of LNG a year. The lead supplier will provide up to four million tonnes of LNG a year to Kogas. The remainder will be split between one or two other suppliers.
WA already has a strong relationship with Korea through the North West Shelf Venture, which began supplying LNG to Korea under a mid-term, seven-year contract that started in late 2003. The North West Shelf Venture has an excellent supply record, with more than 1,600 cargoes delivered to existing customers in Asia since 1989.
Gallop said LNG supplies from WA could treble within the next five years with the addition of supplies from proposed new projects.
These new LNG projects and other resources developments gave WA an excellent opportunity to sets its economy on a strong footing in the next 10 years, said WA minister for state development, Clive Brown at a breakfast hosted by law firm Deacons.
However, he said the current taxation from major projects split between the Commonwealth and the State and the funding of common user infrastructure was inequitable and was hampering WA’s development.
The Commonwealth was set to receive approximately $17 billion in revenue over the life of the of the Gorgon project project, while the State would only receive approximately $330million. Yet the State had been advised by the Commonwealth that it was expected to pick up the tab of common user infrastructure to support downstream projects that would use Gorgon gas.
Brown said that given the huge infrastructure costs usually associated with establishing major projects, this was a key area of concern that would need to be addressed for future projects.
