**Check against delivery
Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
It's a pleasure to mark this important milestone in the history of the North West Shelf.
To those visiting Canberra, I urge you as Minister for Tourism to spend as much time as you can in the nation's capital.
Australia's cultural institutions - The National Library, the National Museum, the Art Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the new Museum of Australian Democracy, and the Australian War Memorial - are all close to Parliament House.
It will be time well spent.
As Minister for Resources and Energy, I'm here to congratulate you all - whether employed by Woodside, one of the joint venturers, or by one of the many other parties which have contributed to the success that is the North West Shelf Venture.
The report by ACIL Tasman we launch today chronicles a quarter of a century of achievement.
My assessment of this project's importance is quite simple:
Can you imagine what WA would be like today, or what its future would hold, without this development?
The answer is - you can't.
The North West Shelf Project has not only spawned a thriving WA oil and gas sector.
It has driven the application of cutting edge technologies and has led to the emergence of a world class petroleum services hub in Perth.
- Many oil and gas services providers now have expanded and diversified into new markets and technologies
- This diversification and growth is driving a broadening and deepening of the Western Australian economy
- The skills and technologies developed by this project and its suppliers continue to underpin new and planned oil and gas developments.
More fundamentally - gas from the Venture has provided energy to fuel WA's minerals boom and industrial sectors.
And 20 years of LNG exports is a wonderful achievement.
Australian LNG provides power for Japan's major industrial regions and some 90 million Japanese people.
It is worth noting that Japan was the foundation customer for LNG from the North West Shelf and that Japan remains our largest LNG trading partner.
The Venture also supplies gas to millions of consumers in Korea and China.
The North West Shelf Venture enabled Woodside to become a major force in world LNG markets.
Woodside now operates two of Australia's largest resource projects, the North West Shelf Venture and the nearby Pluto LNG project under construction.
Together, they are worth a staggering $39 billion.
This represents a huge achievement - for jobs, for energy, for enterprise, for exploration and for initiative.
But we are here to celebrate the North West Shelf, which quite simply, is one of the nation's most prized assets.
Since 1989, the Venture has dispatched more than 2,700 cargoes, each carrying enough LNG to power the lights at the Melbourne Cricket Ground for 20 years.
Australian business gets an $800 million stimulus from the project every year.
At the same time, it provides more than $1 billion a year in government revenue that is invested in public services.
And the Venture produces gas for Australian homes and businesses, bolstering our vital energy security.
But we have only just begun.
As China and India lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, global demand for LNG is forecast to triple by 2030.
Australian gas can secure Australia's future as a global energy superpower:
- Enhancing energy security at home
- Building energy security for our trading partners
- Giving our neighbours a cleaner, greener fuel
- And driving Australia's economic growth.
Projects such as Pluto and Gorgon are being built on the pioneering work of the North West Shelf.
The numbers for Gorgon alone are breath-taking:
- $300 billion in exports
- 10,000 direct and indirect jobs
- $40 billion in government revenue to fund the nation's infrastructure for the future
With other projects such as Ichthys, Browse, Wheatstone and Queensland coal seam methane developments on the drawing board - Australia's position as a world-class LNG supplier looks assured.
All largely built on the skills and knowhow developed as a result of the North West Shelf project
In developing our LNG industry, we are giving our trading partners a transition fuel for a low-carbon economy.
After all, LNG produces about half the greenhouse gas emissions compared with coal when used for electricity.
At the same time, LNG projects such as Gorgon are giving us a better understanding of carbon capture and storage.
The Australian Government has taken a lead on CCS development, committing more than $2 billion for new demonstration plants.
I have just returned from Europe where I urged energy ministers from around the world to work together to accelerate the deployment of CCS on a commercial scale.
I want the gas industry to think harder than ever about how we can make Australia a global hub for this crucial technology.
Securing the place of fossil fuels in the global energy mix is at stake.
CCS can provide as much as one-fifth of the worldwide response to climate change, according to the International Energy Agency.
So the gas industry has an important role in making CCS work on an industrial, commercially-viable scale.
Bringing projects online presents major challenges for government and industry.
Just as the North West Shelf was in its day, the world's biggest infrastructure project, the Gorgon project is today the most challenging private logistics and supply chain exercise ever attempted.
So we need to ensure these projects have the skilled workers they need.
That's why the Australian Government set up the National Resource Sector Employment Taskforce.
Governments will be working closely with industry to increase the supply of skilled labour so these huge projects can get up and running.
Remember, the rapid urbanisation on Australia's doorstep offers incredible economic opportunity - but only if we have the right skills to meet the challenge.
With so much potential, the importance of skills cannot be overstated.
Ladies and gentlemen, world energy demand is insatiable.
Today we have the opportunity to be a catalyst for LNG developments on a scale which would have been unimaginable 25 years ago.
They are possible today in large part because what has flowed from the vision and drive of those who made the North West Shelf Project happen.
The Australian Government will continue to support this industry's growth; growth which will underpin our economic strength and contribute to energy security in our region and the world's response to the challenge of climate change.
The industry has done very well so far and there is much you should be proud of.
But I think the best is yet to come.
Thank you