Gorgon to create 10,000 jobs in WA

Xavi6

Great news today -

http://www.theage.com.au/business/gorgon-partners-sign-on-dotted-line-20090914-fnuq.html

Gorgon partners sign on dotted line

MATHEW MURPHY
September 15, 2009

CHEVRON Australia, the operator of the nation's biggest resources project, Gorgon, has refused to endorse Federal Government figures on the value of multibillion-dollar contracts signed to advance its $43 billion liquefied natural gas project.

After months of trumpeting huge deals to supply LNG to Asia Pacific customers, few, if any, were surprised when Chevron and joint venture partners ExxonMobil and Shell announced they would proceed with Gorgon, a project that will boost Australia's gross domestic product by an estimated $65 billion.

Chevron Australia's managing director, Roy Krzywosinski, said initial works on Gorgon, which will be based at Barrow Island, 50 kilometres off Western Australia, would begin in coming weeks. Major construction would start by the end of the year and first production from the three-train, 15 million tonne-a-year project was expected by mid-2014.

The Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, welcomed the announcement. He said the project would support up to 10,000 jobs and boost export revenue.

''The Gorgon investment will be Australia's largest-ever resources development and is expected to generate $300 billion in Australian export earnings,'' Mr Rudd said.

But Mr Krzywosinski refused to be drawn on recent suggestions that the Federal Government had inflated the value of recent LNG sales from Gorgon.

Last week Chevron announced a binding agreement to export 3 million tonnes a year of LNG to Japan and Korea until 2039, a deal the Federal Government estimated to be worth $70 billion. That followed a ''$50 billion'' contract between ExxonMobil and PetroChina that was hailed as Australia's largest-ever trade deal. Last week PetroChina said it did not believe the contract was worth as much as the Rudd Government had stated.

''There is no such a conception of $US41 billion in the total trade value of the agreement as some media reported,'' PetroChina's parent company, China National Petroleum, said in a statement.

Mr Krzywosinski said the value of the contracts was commercially sensitive information that he would not comment on.

Despite the lack of transparency on the Gorgon deals, there is no doubting the boon to the Australian economy, with more than $30 billion in contracts expected to go to Australian companies over the next 30 years. Mr Krzywosinski said that included $10 billion in construction contracts.

Gorgon has come a long way from the discovery of its first gas field in 1981 to its current potential to supply at least 8 per cent of the world's LNG demand.

The project chief, Colin Beckett, said Australia's close proximity to LNG-hungry Asia would give it an advantage over rival LNG projects around the world. ''The outlook shows the Asian market will probably be the largest growth opportunity. So, clearly, we are in the right place in Australia to supply that market,'' he said.

No one wants to use the word 'boom' but it's fantastic news for the state and country.

brendansmith

Xavi6 wrote: »

No one wants to use the word 'boom' but it's fantastic news for the state and country.

Good one

kittex

I hope Chevron et al make life better for the people in the region. Karratha has plenty of services and facilities already but Rio and BHP do sweet FA for the rest of the Pilbara and the royalties for regions don't get used to make up for it.

Mahatma coat

you'll find that these 10000 jobs are a numeric fiction tho, its most likeley about 4000 jobs on renewin contract or day labour etc just fluffed up to make the govt look better, we're seeina fair bit of it when you scratch the surface over her with the CNI/TJH/APL/NBW/CLEM......

spinmeistry

still tho big project, might finally mean bitumen in a few areas;)

The_B_Man

i used to work in chevron as a contractor.

got sacked last month tho....:(

not by chevron tho. the smelly contracting company gave me the bullet for little or no reason.

was meant to be headin up to barrow island for the gorgon project to work on their IT. Ragin!


Incidentally, I had hassle gettin a job over here, hence why im movin to melbourne on monday, but this will set up a loada jobs nicely for trades. expect a LOT of people to be applying for jobs though, and chances are, they'll look after their own first.