By Angela Macdonald-Smith
Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) — Woodside Petroleum Ltd., Australia’s second-largest oil and gas producer, said it has put on hold recruitment for some posts because of the economic slowdown.
The Perth-based company is still hiring “to fill real positions for our operations and projects that will continue to deliver value to shareholders in today’s world,” Chief Executive Officer Don Voelte said today at a conference in Perth. That includes recruiting for the Pluto, Sunrise and Browse liquefied natural gas projects, he said.
Woodside, 34 percent owned by Royal Dutch Shell Plc, is building the A$12 billion ($8.4 billion) Pluto LNG project off the northwest coast and proposes to develop LNG ventures at the Sunrise field in the Timor Sea and at the Browse fields in Western Australia’s far northwest. The government’s plan to introduce carbon trading in 2010 poses a risk for the development of LNG projects, Voelte said.
The economic slump hasn’t changed Woodside’s expectation for a more-than-doubling in global LNG demand by 2015, from about 180 million metric tons a year at present, and the company still forecasts a shortage in supply out to the middle of next decade, Voelte said. “There’s a big hole to fill over this time period,” he said.
The Australian government’s planned carbon trading system, which wouldn’t provide free emissions permits for LNG producers, is “flawed” and threatens investments in new projects, Voelte said.
Passing on Tax
Woodside will start passing through the additional cost of a tax on condensates from the North West Shelf venture within six months, primarily through higher prices for customers within Western Australia, Voelte said. The costs may be passed on through re-opening negotiations on existing contracts, or through higher prices in new supply contracts, he said. Alcoa Inc. is the venture’s biggest gas customer.
Voelte called for a study on an emergency plan for energy supplies within Western Australia should it experience a further gas shortage similar to earlier this year when a blast at Apache Corp.’s Varanus Island gas plant cut more than 30 percent of the state’s gas. One part of the solution may be to build a gas storage plant at the end of the Dampier-Bunbury pipeline, he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Angela Macdonald-Smith in Sydney at[email protected]
Last Updated: October 20, 2008 01:36 EDT
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Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
