• Plummeting royalties: Last year NWS royalties made up just 1.3% of WA’s budget revenue. However, the gas fields subject to royalties are depleting and being replaced by non-royalty paying fields. By 2027-28, WA Treasury expects NWS royalties to drop by almost two-thirds, making up just 0.6% of WA government revenue, around one-sixth the amount paid WA motorists in vehicle registration fees. Research.
• Threat to WA domestic gas reserves: Woodside’s offshore gas fields are depleting rapidly, and it has not identified sufficient gas to fill its enormous export capacity, equivalent to more than double WA’s entire domestic gas use. Woodside is proposing it become a third-party tolling export facility for the next 46 years, able to buy gas from the domestic gas market. This is unprecedented in Australia. All previous LNG projects have included gas fields sufficient (at least in theory) to feed their exports. Research.
• NWS export of domestic gas has already tripled WA’s wholesale Gas and electricity prices: The WA government’s approval of exports of the state’s onshore domestic gas reserves from Waitsia in 2020 has exposed Western Australians to high global prices, leading to a tripling of wholesale prices in WA’s domestic gas and electricity markets. Research.
• Emissions: Woodside’s own documents show the 50-year extension will result in around 90 million tonnes annually, equivalent to 12 average-sized Australian coal power stations, and 4.3 billion tonnes of emissions over its lifetime.
• Corroding one of the world’s greatest artistic treasures: NWS is, by far, the main source of acid gas emissions corroding the priceless Murujuga rock art. It is eight times as ancient as the pyramids in Egypt and Stonehenge, and at least as important.
  • Almost 100 leading Australian and international artists and cultural figures including Jimmy Barnes, Tim Winton, Thomas Keneally, Di Morrissey, and Will Self have signed an open letter calling for the protection of Murujuga, and an end to pollution from the NWS.

“Woodside’s NWS is an enormous threat to our climate. Extending it for another 50 years would be grossly irresponsible, with emissions equivalent to opening another 12 new coal power stations. It will make WA, and the rest of the world hotter and floods and fires more frequent and extreme,” said Mark Ogge, Principal Advisor at The Australia Institute.

“Murujuga is one of the world’s greatest artistic treasures. It is eight times as ancient as the pyramids in Egypt and Stonehenge, and at least as important. Woodside’s North West Shelf gas export terminal is corroding it with acid gas emissions. It is inconceivable it would be allowed to continue this for another 50 years.

“Woodside is running out of gas to feed its massive NWS gas export terminal, and now it is going after WA’s domestic gas reserves.

“Since the McGowan Government foolishly allowed Woodside to export WA’s domestic gas reserves in 2020, exposing WA to global gas prices, wholesale gas and electricity prices have tripled. Approving a 50-year extension would lock in higher energy prices for WA for decades.

“NWS royalties are plummeting. They only pay 1.3% of the WA budget now, and that’s expected to drop by two-thirds to just 0.6% by 2027-25, less than one-sixth the amount WA motorists pay in vehicle registration fees.”