It was a move Woodside would neither confirm nor deny to Energy News yesterday when asked.

 

Addressing the Chamber of Minerals and Energy Western Australia's annual business lunch in Perth's CBD yesterday, McGowan, who is also state development minister, congratulated Woodside on the approach it had taken "moving down the track towards backfilling the North West Shelf". 

 

"I want to congratulate Woodside on its steps to connect Browse via North Rankin into the North West Shelf. I think that is a good, sensible, wise, economically responsible decision on the part of Woodside to ensure we have domestic gas for the long-term here in the Southwest," McGowan said.

 

Woodside would not comment to Energy News on McGowan's comments yesterday beyond confirming that it would "provide more information on plans for Browse gas at our Investor Briefing Day in Sydney on May 23".

 

The company said in its latest quarterly last week that it preferred a development concept for the Brecknock, Calliance and Torosa fields "utilising existing LNG process infrastructure on the Burrup Peninsula, subject to reaching acceptable terms with the Burrup infrastructure owners". 

 

Woodside added that it was still targeting the selection of a Browse development concept in the second half of 2017.

 

CEO Peter Coleman told The Australian last month that bringing Browse gas into the North West Shelf by piping gas 900km would double the life of Australia's oldest and biggest LNG export plant at Karratha.

 

"When you look at efficient use of capital, it really points you to the North West Shelf and says ‘do it'," Coleman said.

 

McGowan said yesterday it had long concerned him that the Karratha community had for years relied on NWS' ongoing operability while the rest of the state had relied on the domestic gas it provided, and that one day the facility would one day "in the not too distant future run down its activity works".

 

That's to say nothing of the domestic gas contracts which roll off around 2021-22 and need to be re-negotiated, without which Wood Mackenzie believes WA faces a gas shortfall of more than 150 million cubic feet per day.

 

Now, McGowan said, Woodside's decision to pipe Browse gas to the NWS would ensure that "Karratha remains a prosperous and vibrant community for a long period of time to come".

 

He also called the decision a "sensible use of capital for the NWS facility".

 

"It took a long time to get to this decision, and there have been lots of ups and downs along the way, and a lot of wasted state money," he said. 

 

"James Price Point cost the state government $100 million for an industrial park that will sit there in perpetuity without industry."

 

The Browse development consists of three fields discovered between 1971 and 200 that contain contingent resources of 16 trillion cubic feet of gas and 466 million barrels of oil.