When Dutch-Anglo oil giant Shell decided to build a massive floating gas factory known as Prelude in 2011, it was billed as the dawn of a new era for the industry.
Key points:
- The Prelude project has been beset by cost and time blowouts, as well as technical problems
- A lobbyist and former engineer says safety issues are the biggest concern
- There are claims Prelude may never pay royalties for the gas it processes off Australia's north-west coast
Australia was midway through a once-in-a-lifetime $300 billion splurge that would make the country the world's biggest producer of super-chilled, shipped gas.
Floating gas plants were supposed to be the logical evolution, vacuuming up gas wherever they went and making fortunes for shareholders and taxpayers.
But barely a decade later, Prelude has been racked by cost and time blowouts, technical problems, and warnings from the regulator that the project came dangerously close to a catastrophic failure.
What's more, critics say the facility may never pay a cent in royalties, is unlikely to deliver a molecule of gas to the domestic market, and has sent most of the construction jobs offshore.
It is all a far cry from the rhetoric of last decade, when Shell's then-Australian chairwoman Ann Pickard said Prelude would be "full of Australians" and "generate a tonne of tax revenues".
How did the reality diverge so widely from the rhetoric, and what does the future hold for Shell's grand plans?
