North West Shelf Venture

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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.^[1]

With investments totalling $25 billion since the early 1980s, the project is the largest resource development in Australian history.^[2] In the late 1980s, it was the largest engineering project in the world.^[3] 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 trillion cubic feet (930 km³) 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.^[4] 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.^[5] The project is expected to operate until 2070.