"From industry and business we need to know how much demand there is going to be and how much opportunity there is to switch from gas to other fuels," Alan Carpenter was quoted saying in the Australian yesterday.

"On the supply side, the oil companies know that they can source additional diesel, for example, but they want to know what the demand is going to be, over what period of time, so they can make forward bookings of tankers," he said.

The comments come after 20 mining and energy sector executives met in Perth to discuss strategies to deal with the 30% cut to the state's energy supply after an explosion at Apache's Varanus Island gas processing plant.

Apache has said it would be months before it could resume partial gas sales from the facility.

The Premier, who hosted the meeting, formed a working group to combat the energy shortfall and announced measures to manage the crisis in the short term.

The state's Kwinana coal-fired station, closed for about two months for maintenance, will reopen in about two weeks and the North West Shelf Venture, which owns Western Australia's biggest gas supply plant at Karratha, will contribute additional supplies.

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry of WA - a member of the working group - said it is working collaboratively with government to minimise the impact of the gas outage on local industry and the wider community.

It said the first order of business for the working group is to gather accurate information about the impact on the business community in order to properly understand the demand and supply situation for electricity, gas and other fuel sources.

"This information is needed as soon as possible to help business and industry plan for future," the chamber said.

According to the CCIWA, the working group will also look at the management of supply and demand, consider alternative sources of fuel and investigate practical ways to lower consumption.

"Business are greatly concerned about the impact the outage will have on their operations and bottom line," it said.

"Gas shortages are already having significant adverse effect on small, medium and large businesses which require security and certainty of energy supply to keep their doors open."

State Government-owned energy supplier Western Power, electricity retailers Alinta, Synergy, Verve Energy and the Dampier-to-Bunbury Pipeline will be included in Carpenter's working group to solve the crisis.