The North West Shelf Venture, situated in the north-west of Western Australia, is Australia's largest resource development project. It involves the extraction of petroleum (mostly natural gas and condensate) at offshore production platforms, onshore processing and export of liquefied natural gas, and production of natural gas for industrial, commercial and domestic use within the state. North West Shelf gas is processed at the Woodside Energy operated Karratha Gas Plant, located on the Murujuga Cultural Landscape The North West Shelf Venture is often cited as the single largest industrial emitter for Australia according to the Clean Energy Regulator.

Project

With investments totalling $25 billion since the early 1980s, the project is the largest resource development in Australian history. In the late 1980s, it was the largest engineering project in the world. The Venture is underpinned by huge hydrocarbon reserves within the Carnarvon Basin, with only about one-third of the Venture's estimated total reserves of 33 Tcuft of gas produced to date. It was owned by a joint venture of six partners – BHP, BP, Chevron, Shell, Woodside Petroleum and a 50:50 joint venture between Mitsubishi and Mitsui & Co – with each holding an equal one-sixth shareholding. Along with being a joint venture partner, Woodside is the project operator on behalf of the other participants. On 1 June 2022, BHP's Petroleum business merged with Woodside Energy. Woodside Energy now hold one-third shareholding in the North West Shelf project.

Assets

Karratha Gas Plant The Karratha Gas Plant was built in the 1980s, originally including multiple LNG production trains. In 2008, the facility capacity was increased to 16.3 million tonnes per year with the commissioning of a fifth, 4.4 million tonnes per year LNG production train. As well as processing gas for export, the facility supplies domestic supplies to consumers and businesses in Western Australia. The facility also processes condensate which is extracted from the gaseous hydrocarbons during processing. The venture currently has three currently active offshore facilities. A fourth, North Rankin B is under construction: The condensate is transported to the Burrup Peninsula (Murujuga) onshore facility on the mainland 130 km away by two 42 in and 40 in undersea pipes. Other assets include: In March 2008, the partners approved a A$5 billion North Rankin 2 project which will underpin supply commitments to customers in Asia beyond 2013. The project will recover remaining low pressure gas from the ageing North Rankin and Perseus gas fields using compression. It will include the installation of a new platform (North Rankin B) which will stand in about 125 metres of water and will be connected by a 100-metre bridge to the existing North Rankin A platform.

Production and sales

The first LNG shipments went to Japan in 1989. Two hundred shipments per year (about one shipment every 1.5 days) in the purpose-built LNG carriers totalling more than seven million tons are made around the world. Markets include sales to long term customers in Japan and spot buyers in China, Spain, South Korea and the United States. To date, the venture has produced more than 1000 cargoes of light crude oil (natural gas condensate). Condensate is sold on the international energy market. In 2002, a contract was signed to supply 3 million tonnes of LNG a year from the North West Shelf Venture to China. The contract was worth $25 billion: between $700 million and $1 billion a year for 25 years. The price was guaranteed not to increase until 2031, and, as international LNG prices were increasing, by 2015 China was paying one-third as were Australian consumers. The venture is Western Australia's largest single producer of domestic gas providing about 65% of total State production. Pipeline gas is processed at the consortium's Karratha facility, and transported to customers in southern Western Australia via the 1530 km Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline. A subsidiary company, North West Shelf Gas Pty Ltd markets the domestic gas component to customers in Western Australia through private contracts and sales to Alinta.

Emissions Controversy

The gas produced by the North West Shelf project is some of the lowest carbon gas energy on earth, which notably is 0.1% CO2. Utilizing the resource will aid several Asian countries in meeting their net 0 targets under the Paris agreement. In 2019, Woodside, and the Joint Venture partners, Chevron, Shell, BP, and Mimi, proposed to extend the life of the North West Shelf project, including the Karratha Gas Plant. The proposal is to extend the life of the fossil fuel project by another 50 years. The North West Shelf gas project, operated by Woodside outside Karratha in Western Australia's northwest, emerged as Australia's largest industrial emitter in 2020–21, as reported by the Clean Energy Regulator. The independent Environmental Protection Authority of Western Australia, advising the state government, has recommended extending the project's operation until 2070.

Engineering heritage award

The first two phases of the project received an Engineering Heritage International Marker from Engineers Australia as part of its Engineering Heritage Recognition Program.