Jack McGinn

Flooding has closed Western Power’s Wellington Street office indefinitely, displacing workers as the utility prepares for a peak period across the state’s main electricity grid.

Early work is underway on a $660 million Department of Defence infrastructure program at Exmouth’s Learmonth airbase, with ATCO subcontracted to build an initial worker’s camp.

The WA Liberal Party has made more from donations this financial year than WA Labor, but levies and union fees have the latter’s coffers well ahead in the lead up to the state election.

The Economic Regulation Authority has ticked off a 57 per cent increase to the benchmark reserve capacity price for electricity producers supporting the state’s main grid from 2027.

Vault Minerals will spend $80 million to expand the processing facility at its King of the Hills mine near Leonora by 20 per cent, to more than 6 million tonnes of ore per annum.

Woodside and Chevron have agreed to an asset swap which will shake up gas project ownership in WA, with parts of the North West Shelf and Wheatstone projects and $644 million to change hands.

The state government has spent $716 million with Aboriginal businesses on transport contracts in just over three years, hitting a procurement target two years ahead of deadline.

State Planning Minister John Carey has thrown the weight of his support behind the recently announced WA Planning Commission chair Emma Cole, after scrutiny over her appointment.

ANALYSIS: As MinRes prepares for a future without its founder, Gina Rinehart's Hancock Prospecting has moved on its gas business and countercyclically acted on an appetite for lithium.

East Perth-based Monford Group has been appointed principal engineering, procurement and construction contractor at the $250 million Glenellan solar farm in New South Wales.

A Chevron-led joint venture has been awarded a greenhouse gas assessment permit next to Barrow Island, where the company operates the Gorgon carbon capture project.

The near-term supply outlook for Western Australia’s domestic gas market has improved this year, but 2028 looms as a critical juncture in the state’s energy future.

The federal government has acknowledged the infrastructure strain facing Perth’s southern coastal corridor, committing to fund three studies into road access at HMAS Stirling.

ANALYSIS: Work in the defence sector is scaling up at Wangara-based diversified contractor Duratec Australia.

Chevron will supply 130 petajoules of gas over 10 years from 2028 to fuel Alcoa’s Western Australian alumina refineries, in a boost for the latter’s operational certainty.

The state’s peak mining lobby body has told a nuclear energy inquiry that the industry is neutral in its stance on energy sources, but stressed the importance of power access for business.

BHP, Rio Tinto, Woodside Energy and BlueScope will partner on an electric smelter ironmaking pilot project at Kwinana, as part of the state’s green iron push.

A Broome prison and emissions reduction reporting implementation are among 10 key projects the state has fallen behind on over the last year, a new progress report has revealed.

Investment to the tune of $35 million in the state’s defence industry has led to around 1,000 opportunities for jobseekers to date, according to figures from a WA government report.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers has appointed a former banking executive and an economics professor to the Reserve Bank board, following a six-month review into monetary policy setting.

ANALYSIS: Collie’s omission from the modelling that guides the federal opposition’s $331 billion nuclear plan highlights the ‘otherness’ of the state’s electricity grid.

Federal opposition leader Peter Dutton claims a $331 billion plan to rollout nuclear energy across Australia will save taxpayers as much as $263 billion compared with renewables.

The state government has approved Woodside Energy’s bid to extend the life of its North West Shelf plant for a further 50 years, in a boost for the development of the $30 billion Browse field.

Premier Roger Cook has come to the defence of the state’s environmental approvals process, after several high-profile activists took aim at Woodside’s proposed Browse project.

Hayley Cormann has been appointed by Attorney General John Quigley as a district court judge, months after her bid for Liberal preselection in South Perth fell flat.

WA author and environmentalist Tim Winton has fired a salvo at the fossil fuels sector, as the face of the controversial Environmental Defenders Office’s Christmas campaign.

Capricorn Metals will expand its Karlawinda gold project footprint, in a deal worth up to $3 million to aid its push to grow production from the Pilbara goldmine.

West Perth contractor CPC Engineering has secured two new contracts in the red-hot gold sector, bringing in $24 million worth of new work with AngloGold Ashanti and Capricorn Metals.

Goldminer Catalyst Metals has cleared $36 million worth of inherited debt, riding the wave of gold price momentum which has led to a flurry of activity in the sector this week.

Woodside has revised its engineering, procurement and construction contract with Bechtel to develop the first three trains at its Louisiana LNG project in the United States.

Horizon Power has offered to connect the proposed $30 million, 10 megawatt Junja solar farm near Port Hedland to its coastal grid, in a major boost for the shovel ready Pilbara project.

Jack McGinn and Nadia Budihardjo discuss the trends observed in the executive remuneration special feature.