Woodside's North West Shelf, Australia's largest gas project, approved for life extension to 2070
The life of Australia's largest oil and gas project will be extended to 2070, with Environment Minister Murray Watt giving the long-awaited environmental approval for the North West Shelf project to be extended beyond 2030.
Woodside proposed the life extension to its West Australian gas facility six years ago, and it has sat under assessment since then.
"Following the consideration of rigorous scientific and other advice including submissions from a wide cross-section of the community, I have today made a proposed decision to approve this development, subject to strict conditions, particularly relating to the impact of air emissions levels from the operation of an expanded on-shore Karratha gas plant," Senator Watt said in a statement.
The approval is Senator Watt's first major act as environment minister, which will be welcomed by the Coalition and furiously opposed by the Greens.
WA draws 14 per cent of its domestic power supply from the Woodside network of offshore oil and gas facilities and Karratha processing plants, but climate groups have warned the extension would add an additional decade's worth of emissions if fully utilised.
However the act which governs environmental approvals does not include provisions to consider the climate change impact of a project, and so projects cannot be approved or rejected on that basis.
The government drafted legislation that would have introduced climate considerations into the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, but it was pulled by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese in the face of heavy protest from WA Premier Roger Cook.
Senator Watt has confirmed that bill will be rewritten and reintroduced to parliament as a priority.
The laws would not have applied retrospectively to projects already in the approvals pipeline and so would not have impacted the North West Shelf decision.
However, former environment minister Tanya Plibersek's decision to twice delay the project before the election, though it had already won state-level environmental approvals, caused frustration within industry and prompted the Coalition to promise it would approve the project within 30 days of winning government.
Days after being sworn in as environment minister, Senator Watt acknowledged that the sector had waited long enough for a decision on North West Shelf.
On Tuesday, Tuvalu's Climate Minister Maina Talia said the North West Shelf extension "would lock in emissions until 2070, threatening our survival" and undermine Australia's chances at hosting the next global climate conference in 2026 in partnership with Pacific nations.
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