Originally published by Perry Williams of The Australian.
01.06.2026
Western Australia’s $30bn Browse gas project is poised for a further shake-up after British oil major BP sold a 5 per cent stake to South Korea’s GS Energy, strengthening a plan for the giant resource to supply Woodside Energy’s North West Shelf LNG plant.
Sources said the deal marked the entry of one of Asia’s biggest LNG and refinery players into the country a month after Foreign Minister Penny Wong renewed an energy security pact with South Korea.
The sale would result in BP, now headed by former Woodside boss Meg O’Neill, still holding a 39.3 per cent share in Browse with the selldown trimming the company’s investment exposure ahead of an expected final investment decision on Browse by the end of 2028.
Australia is South Korea’s largest supplier of LNG with the deal allowing GS to tap into its equity share of gas from the Browse project should it proceed. Seoul is the top supplier of diesel to Australia and the third largest source of jet fuel to the nation’s aviation industry.
The Albanese government poured more than $10.7bn into bolstering fuel security in the May budget, aiming to use government ownership to increase the nation’s diesel and jet fuel supplies to 50 days by 2030.
The transaction also lands at a tense moment for Labor as its proposed gas reservation scheme rattled the gas industry with the Gina Rinehart-backed Senex Energy last week describing the intervention as “nationalisation by stealth”.
A selldown, foreshadowed by The Australian’s DataRoom column, adds to a flurry of gas transactions with Shell’s 16.67 per cent stake sale in the North West Shelf project entering its final stretch with buyers.
The unexpected move by Japanese energy giant Inpex to buy PetroChina’s 10.67 per cent share in Browse in May also stoked tensions given Inpex’s desire to process gas from the development at its Darwin facility rather than the North West Shelf.
Woodside has been tipped to trigger its pre-emption rights over the Inpex sale, handing it greater control of the project while GS Energy as a minority owner would also be expected to side with the plan to deliver gas through the North West Shelf over Darwin.
Inpex, as operator of the Ichthys LNG facility in Darwin, was widely expected to favour routing Browse gas north through its own infrastructure rather than south via the 900km pipeline to Woodside’s Karratha Gas Plant, the onshore processing facility for the North West Shelf project.
The Browse fields, discovered between 1971 and 2000, hold a combined contingent resource of approximately 13.9 trillion cubic feet of dry gas and around 390 million barrels of condensate – making the development one of the most consequential yet-to-be-sanctioned LNG projects in the Asia-Pacific region.
Woodside operates Browse with a 30.6 per cent interest along with BP’s expected dilution to 39.3 per cent, a joint venture between Mitsui and Mitsubishi at 14.4 per cent and GS Energy at 5 per cent. PetroChina’s 10.67 per cent share will either be held by Inpex or Woodside should it exercise its pre-emption rights.
The next steps for Browse include a contest to secure a contractor to perform early engineering and design work on the project with an invitation to tender out to the market and work expected to start in 2027. Environmental approvals will also be required to proceed with an investment decision due in 2028 or 2029.
BP bought Shell’s 27 per cent share in Browse in April 2023. The bulging list of energy giants and their competing investment priorities has been cited as one factor which has slowed the development passage of the offshore Browse Basin, located 425km north of Broome and first discovered in the 1970s.
Ms O’Neill, the former Woodside boss, said at the time a condition of Browse moving to a final investment decision was a requirement for carbon capture and storage solution along with environmental permits from the WA and federal governments and commercial agreements between the Browse and NW Shelf ventures.
At Browse, both Shell and BP had held historical concerns about the high carbon content of the development particularly given their global shift to less polluting sources of energy.
However, the current venture partners have a united position on carbon capture but it’s expected any plan will still require environmental approvals.
Australia is transitioning to a new EPBC framework following the Samuel review, which concluded the existing regime was failing both the environment and businesses by delivering slow, inconsistent and legally fragile approvals.
Woodside has proposed adding a carbon capture facility to Browse with a sequestration component to be included from the start of operations rather than 10 years into the project as originally forecast.
Consultancy Wood Mackenzie has previously stated the cost of Browse CCS could be up to triple the cost of Santos’ Moomba carbon plant in South Australia’s Cooper Basin.