Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaleditions.com/i/103334
industryfocus Fast Fact Australia is the fourthlargest exporter of LNG, from two plants in WA and one in Darwin. Supply from new plants will make Australia the secondlargest exporter in the next few years. Indigenous and environmental groups objecting to its plans to build the world's largest LNG gas processing plant at James Price Point in the Kimberley. A simple way to please everyone, you'd think, would be to scotch that plan and go for a floating plant. Out of sight, out of mind. Santos GLNG vice-president Mark Macfarlane says its $18.5-billion Gladstone project is on track to ship its first LNG in 2015. Two similar plants are taking shape nearby – Curtis LNG and Pacific LNG – and there has been competition for skilled workers. "We're doing all we can to find labour locally and we have 20 training programs in place so people wanting to get into the industry can gain the skills required," Macfarlane says. "An example is through our partnership with SkillsTech Australia where we've established a specialised coal seam gas and gas transmission pipeline operations training centre in Acacia Ridge, where we will train 70 employees: 60 training positions for gas field operators and 10 training positions for operating the underground gas transmission pipeline." You'd expect there to be an air of competition in Gladstone as the three plants take shape, but Macfarlane says that's not the case: "We all started our projects at different times, we each have our different schedules and we all want to see one another succeed. We all need to be successful to create the legacy industry we want for our staff, shareholders, community and Queenslanders." So far the company has invested about $26 million in the local community, including nearly $10 million for the Aero Medical Evacuation Retrieval Service, $7.4 million for community housing support and $3.5 million towards the Gladstone Foundation. Thousands of wells will need to be drilled in the Surat Basin and Bowen Basin in Queensland and northern NSW to feed coal seam gas to the three 71