Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety stats revealed that the state's mineral and petroleum industry was valued at $104.95 billion in 2016-17 including a record volume of LNG which has risen 45% in the past five years with production reaching 28.7 million tonnes in 2016-17.

 

Total production from the petroleum sector was valued at $19.1 billion, 5% more than the previous year - and didn't yet include Chevron Corporation's other megaproject, Wheatstone, which belatedly sent its first cargo in late October.

 

Wheatstone's second train is due online in March 2018.

 

The average number of people employed by WA's petroleum sector also continued to fall, this time from 1282 to 1203, and none more so than ag Gorgon whose numbers are down 30%.

 

Yet the mineral and petroleum royalties WA's government received rose by 24% to $5.7 billion in 2016-17, though this was likely due to iron ore providing 80% of collections with strong prices and volume growth boosting receipts by 33%.

 

Petroleum royalty receipts plummeted almost 53% from $7.2 million to $3.4 million, with $573 million in grants also coming from the North West Shelf project, which accounted for 10% of total royalty revenue.

 

Yet among this pain, LNG was easily WA's most valuable petroleum product in 2016-17, accounting for 12% of WA's mineral and petroleum sales for the fiscal year as sales from the cooled gas rose from $10.8 billion in 2015-16 to $12.7 billion in 2016-17.

 

The volume of LNG sales rose 37% year-on-year, though their value was up only 18% due to the price producers received.

 

For example, Japan and South Korea accounted for 77% of WA's LNG exports and the year-on-year fall in LNG delivered prices in those Asian countries affected the overall sales value.

 

The NWS and Pluto were impacted by bad weather in the March quarter, with the former experiencing an electrical fault which suspended operations from April 15-28, while Gorgon's third train started production in March three months ahead of schedule.

 

Crude oil volumes dropped almost 30% to 5.4 gigalitres and condensate production fell 11% to 6GL in 2016-17, the sixth straight year they both dropped, to a total of $4.3 billion, 18% down from the prior fiscal year.

 

Putting WA's projects into context, DMIRS Director General David Smith said the cumulative production value for the world's top 50 projects was estimated at more than US$124 billion for 2016, with Rio Tinto's Hamersley iron ore projects heading the list at almost $11 billion.

 

In value terms, WA projects accounted for 32% of the world's top 50, and 63% of the top 10 global mining projects.