Woodside Petroleum's $30 billion Browse gas hub project in the Kimberley has been recommended to proceed following a state government review.
Woodside Petroleum's $30 billion Browse gas hub project in the Kimberley has been recommended to proceed following a state government review.
The Department of State Development assessment has been released for public comment today for three months.
Final approval rests with the federal and WA environment ministers.
The project will see Woodside's natural gas, along with gas from other parties, converted into liquefied natural gas for export at an onshore facility north of Broome.
The WA government earlier this year said it would compulsorily acquire land at James Price Point, the chosen site for the hub, after an unresolved legal stoush between the Kimberley Land Council and other native title claimants threatened to stall the development.
The state government and Woodside favour the common-user hub concept, as it will prevent ad hoc development of several gas plants in WA's north.
"The establishment of the BLNG (Browse LNG) precinct would reduce the duplication of infrastructure such as ports, accommodation and roads, which would be required should individual companies build `stand alone' facilities," the DSD said in its assessment.
"A single, common-user precinct would offer economic efficiencies to proponents, while reducing the development footprint compared to multiple, stand-along LNG processing facilities - thus limiting the potential disturbance to environmental, cultural and heritage values.
"A common-user precinct would also enable a coordinated and consistent approach to management of potential environmental, heritage and social impacts, monitoring of cumulative effects, and auditing of control mechanisms."
The state government said the precinct was expected to result in billions of dollars of capital investment, create thousands of jobs and provide opportunities for specialist service providers.
"The proposal would also provide significant economic and other social benefits to traditional owners and west Kimberley indigenous communities," it said.
"The extensive studies and assessments undertaken demonstrate that these significant benefits can be delivered while protecting the important environmental, heritage and social values of the region."
The project has come under fire from environmental groups concerned James Price Point is too ecologically unique and pristine for a large industrial development.
The Wilderness Society on Monday said the EPA's studies on four vital areas - marine waste discharge, oil spill modelling, marine primary producer habitat, and coastal processes - were incomplete and weren't included in the report.
The Wilderness Society also said feasible site options outside the Kimberley had not been sufficiently assessed.
"The ... report released today does not contain the required WA government study of non-Kimberley options, despite these options being not only feasible, but actually preferred, by several of the proposed project's joint venture partners including Shell, Chevron and BHP Billiton," it said.
Possible alternatives to James Price Point included piping the gas to the existing Woodside-operated North West Shelf processing facilities at Karratha, several hundred kilometres from the offshore Browse fields, and processing the gas on floating vessels offshore.
Woodside rejected these concepts.
BHP Billiton chairman Jac Nasser said at the mining giant's annual general meeting in Perth recently that it "won't proceed with any development where our values and standards are compromised in any way".
The comments were echoed by BHP Billiton chief executive Marius Kloppers and have been widely interpreted as reluctance to proceed with the Browse project.
But outgoing Woodside chief executive Don Voelte last month said the decision to build the hub onshore at James Price Point was made unanimously by all joint venture partners.
Mr Voelte also said he didn't believe there were any obstacles for a positive final investment decision on the development by June 2012.
A separate ethnobiological report prepared for the Kimberley Land Council by UDLA has also been released today.
The conclusion of the Ethnobiological Report is that the LNG Precinct will have high and possibly long lasting ethnobiologcal impact within the immediate construction/operational boundaries," the report said.
The report found the most significant impact would result from issues of access.
The access relates to increased activity from the development and restricted access for traditional owners.
"Improved accessibility to areas associated with the LNG development has the potential to result in the degradation of culturally significant sites," the report said.
"Conversely, because the immediate area around the LNG Precinct will be subject to restricted access for Traditional Owners, Indigenous marine and land activities will be severely limited or cease in these areas."
