McGowan Government continues response to gas supply incident

• No risk to household gas and electricity supply
• Steady supply highlights strength of the State Government's Domestic Gas Reservation Policy
• Resumption of Wheatstone plant experiences minor delay
  

The State Government is continuing to work to ensure WA is well supplied with gas following an outage at Chevron's Wheatstone domestic gas plant near Onslow.

The plant experienced a technical failure on the evening of Thursday, January 5, which resulted in gas production ceasing.

The plant had been expected to restart today but this has been delayed by at least a further two days owing to technical problems by the operator.

The incident follows reduced supply from the Santos-operated John Brookes facility at Varanus Island and Devil Creek facility after recent interruptions.

While the number of commercial production facilities being offline or at reduced output is unprecedented, there is no risk to household gas or electricity supply.

Gas suppliers and marketers are actively seeking to meet gas demand from industry, and the Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline remains in a stable state.

Comments attributed to Energy Minister Bill Johnston:

"The fact that the State can continue to have a stable gas supply despite three facilities either being offline or at reduced output highlights the strength of our energy system.

"The domestic gas reservation policy, which guarantees 15 per cent of supply is retained for local use, continues to be the backbone of our energy security here in WA.

"Neither residential gas or electricity supply is at risk as a result of the Wheatstone outage.

"Household gas usage represents a very small percentage of total gas use in Western Australia at 7%.

"While industry may pay market prices in the short term to secure gas, commercial operators are responding appropriately.

"I would again like to thank all market participants for their co-operative behaviour."

Minister's Office - 6552 6700