The manager of the Gorgon gas project insisted today that it has delivered $10 billion of work to local industry and more is on the way, despite claims that its local content figures are misleading.
Speaking to journalists at the Australian Marine Complex at Henderson, Gorgon development general manager Colin Beckett said the project had awarded about $20 billion of contracts, and half of that work, worth $10 billion, would be done in Australia.
In addition, Mr Beckett said a further $10 billion of work on the Gorgon project would be completed locally, taking Australian content to $20 billion.
That would be just under 50 per cent of the project's total $43 billion budget.
UnionsWA said today that $7.4 billion of the $10 billion of contracts identified as being performed in Western Australia are being largely performed offshore.
UnionsWA Secretary Simone McGurk said union analysis had raised serious questions about the extent to which Western Australia was really benefiting from the Gorgon project.
"We already knew that Chevron has sent more than 300,000 tonnes of fabricated steel for its Gorgon project offshore," she said.
"Now we have found that $7.4 billion of the $10 billion of Gorgon contracts Chevron claim are performed locally have large offshore components too.
"The worst thing about this revelation is that the work that is going offshore is the skilled engineering and manufacturing work."
Mr Beckett said local content calculations were based on detailed scrutiny of work done, including by contractors and sub-contractors.
The focus was on where the work was actually undertaken, rather than where the company awarded a contract happened to be based.
Mr Beckett added that the state government was sent quarterly reports with details of local work.
The union study released today listed 14 contracts that it said were largely completed overseas.
These included the Kellogg joint venture's $2.7 billion engineering contract; it said the vast majority of the engineering, procurement and construction management work was done overseas, even though Perth company Clough is part of the joint venture.
A Gorgon spokesman said there appeared to be a misunderstanding about how local content was calculated.
"An overwhelming proportion of work in the contracts identified in the statement is being undertaken in Western Australia and Australia - some as high as 90 per cent."
