Woodside’s $30b gas project 'could struggle' to find financial backers

Detailed summary

Woodside's enormous gas project off the Kimberley coast of Western Australia faces difficulties getting finance as banks increasingly withdraw from fossil-fuel investments.

Questions have been raised about whether the Woodside Browse project, which stands to become Australia's most expensive resource development, will be able to secure financial backing.

The Browse Basin gas field features a uniquely high carbon dioxide content, and a climate finance expert says banks are increasingly turning away from financing fossil fuel projects.

The controversial gas project off WA's northern coast has been given fresh momentum in the wake of rising gas prices sparked by the US-Israeli war with Iran.

Australia's biggest untapped gas resource would involve building one of the world's longest subsea pipelines and would be among the more expensive projects ever developed in this country.

The $30 billion Browse gas project, off Western Australia's Kimberley coast, lends itself to superlatives.

But for all its scale and ambition, some critics say Browse could face a basic problem.

They suggest its backers, led by Australian oil and gas giant Woodside, may struggle to borrow the huge sums of money needed to build it.

"I think it's really important again to stress how high the project cost has become," said Elisa Leys, the acting Tokyo office director of advocacy group Solutions for Climate.

"As the project cost continues to increase, we just see that the pool of financing is drying up."

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