So the dominant purpose of the Future Gas Strategy is exports, but this is not a very important export industry.
The industry employs 20,000 people – one-sixth as many as Coles – and pays little in taxes and royalties.
If it was a country, WA would be the world’s third largest exporters of natural gas, but according to the Australia Institute, the royalties paid by the gas industry to the WA government, totalled $670 million in 2023-24, or just 1.5 per cent of the state government’s revenue. Motor vehicle registration contributes almost twice as much; iron ore royalties nine times as much.
The Australian Taxation Office considers the oil and gas industry to be “systemic non-payers” of tax. The four biggest LNG producers operating in WA – Chevron, ExxonMobil, Woodside and Shell – made combined income of $55.2 billion in 2021-22 and paid $1.7 billion in corporate income tax and petroleum resource rent tax. ExxonMobil paid nothing. Exxon, Woodside, Shell and Chevron contributed less to the Commonwealth government than Australia’s beer drinkers, who raised $2.5 billion through the beer excise.
https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/finance/2024/05/13/alan-kohler-future-gas-strategy-climate-change
