Energy story ‘needs to be told’
The energy industry can no longer assume the broader community automatically understands its contribution to supporting economic prosperity, energy security, and the energy transition, the AOG Energy Conference in Perth was told.
Delivering a keynote address on the opening day, Woodside Executive Vice President Australia Operations Liz Westcott said, “there was a time, not so long ago, when it was enough for us to be good at what we do”.
“Now we also need to do a better job of explaining what we do, why we do it and how we do it. And why it matters. And it really does matter.
“It matters because society relies on the hydrocarbons we produce. They support not only energy supply but also feedstock for manufacturing of products that are central to our lives, from the plastics in medical products, to the fertilizer used to grow the food we’ll dine on tonight; from the petrol or diesel in your car to the bitumen in the roads we drive on and the electricity that powers our hospitals and homes – or, indeed, your Tesla.
“It also matters because our industry makes a huge contribution to funding things like hospitals and schools by paying billions of dollars in taxes and royalties.
“And our industry contributes to economic prosperity by providing jobs and opportunity for tens of thousands of Australians, with many of these opportunities supporting regional economies.”
Referencing Woodside’s Scarborough Energy Project, Ms Westcott said it was 55 per cent complete at the end of 2023 and is targeting first LNG cargo in 2026.
More than $3.6 billion in contracts have been awarded to WA businesses working on the project.
She said gas had an important role to play in the energy mix in the decades ahead, as a flexible source of energy and as a stable baseload that will smooth the transition to renewables.
It is also important input for processing critical minerals for batteries, solar power and wind farms.
“But we do need to do more to reduce and manage our emissions – and we are working on this,” she said.
“Offsetting emissions by retiring carbon credits has an important role. And we are working on new and lower-carbon solutions to meet our customers’ energy needs, including options for carbon capture, utilisation and storage.”
Opening the forum, Energy, Environment, and Climate Change Minister Reece Whitby said natural gas continued to play a key role in the State’s economy and would play a critical role in the global energy transition by being a flexible energy source that can firm renewable energy into the system.
“To support the ongoing use of gas, the WA Government is supporting the deployment of Carbon Capture, Utilisation and Storage, which should address some of the emissions produced by hard-to-abate industries,” Minister Whitby said.
“This State has enormous potential in this area. If realised, CCUS hubs could support cross-sector collaboration towards decarbonisation, attract significant overseas investment and generate 37,000 construction jobs and 500 permanent jobs.”
The State was also seizing the opportunity to become a global renewable hydrogen leader by using its renewable energy potential, dedicated industrial hubs and world class export infrastructure.
“We are making good progress. We have approved a project to export renewable hydrogen, we have begun distributing renewable hydrogen in the WA gas network and made a refuelling facility for hydrogen vehicles a reality,” he said.
“In WA, there are more than 30 hydrogen projects on the go. It means our State could produce up to 100Gw of renewable energy by 2030 and this could increase to 200Gw by 2040.”
Chevron Australia Director of Operations Danny Woodall, in his opening address, said “our industry must respond to mee the energy needs of our communities and customers now and for decades to come while also contributing to a lower carbon future”.
He said Chevron provided almost 50 per cent of the State’s domestic gas supply, enough energy to supply 4.3 million households.
Investments in its Gorgon and Jansz-io projects would help to ensure Chevron can support the continued growth of WA and deliver gas to a domestic market “during a tight supply demand period that is forecast from now until 2029”.
He said the CCS system at Gorgon, while not without challenges, is the world’s largest CCS project dedicated to carbon abatement and had safely stored 9mt of CO2, demonstrating the meaningful contribution CCS can play in advancing a lower carbon future.
“The project has been safely storing CO2 safely at globally significant scale and we know the technology works and can work at an even greater scale,” Mr Woodall said.