Just transition

In 2022, Woodside commissioned a Social Impact Assessment (SIA) for its Karratha operations in Western Australia. The SIA contemplated both growth and decline scenarios and assessed the potential impacts and opportunities associated with both. The SIA engaged local stakeholders through interviews, focus groups and workshops with the decline scenario revealing potential a range of social impacts to the community. Comments raised related to social investment, employment, procurement and community services.

In 2024 Woodside informed the government, community and our workforce of our decision to retire one LNG train at the Karratha Gas Plant (KGP) to manage infrastructure in line with a natural decline in the North West Shelf’s (NWS) gas reserves. We continue to seek additional third-party gas supplies to fill emerging processing capacity at the KGP.

A further complexity is that, while NWS gas reserves are in decline, we are progressing growth at the adjacent Pluto LNG facility through the Scarborough gas field. We are also looking to develop alternate energy supplies and carbon management projects in the Karratha community.

During this time, we are communicating openly and transparently with our workforce, the community, suppliers and governments about a range of scenarios for the future of the NWS and the KGP, to make this a shared journey of transition.

To achieve this, we are applying a place-based approach to ensure we understand impacts on our people, their families and the broader community. This includes building on our understanding of our social and economic impacts through formalised assessment and management planning processes. Therefore, we are building on the 2022 SIA with a socio-economic impact assessment to better understand community and contractor dependencies and refresh our social investment strategy, with outcomes expected in 2025.

Woodside’s Graduate Development Program and Navigator Leadership Program support our employees to continue learning and growing across a wide range of skills. We have robust processes to support people through changes in our skills requirements. This includes building breadth of knowledge and enabling open discussion of the energy transition through WECAN (the Australian-based climate focused Employee Impact Group, (EIG)) and Spark (the US-based sustainability focused EIG). Among the group’s initiatives is an annual climate forum which includes expert speakers, deep dives on relevant topics and question and answer panel sessions.

At a national level in Australia, Woodside’s CEO sits on the board of the Business Council of Australia (BCA). We are represented on the BCA's, Education and Migration Committee (the Committee) and its associated working groups. In 2024, the focus related to skills gap analysis and work integrated learning. The Committee recognises the importance of all Australians having the opportunity to develop the knowledge and skills that will allow them to be effective and productive in the jobs and workplaces of the future.

In Western Australia, Woodside is a member of the LNG Jobs Taskforce and chairs the Energy Workforce Capability working group. This working group includes participants from the LNG industry, education providers and unions. The working group aims to enhance the skills and knowledge of the Western Australian workforce to meet the needs of the energy industry now and into the future. In 2024, the working group conducted a review of skills required to support the future LNG industry.

In Australia, we have long established meetings with community liaison groups in Karratha and Exmouth. These group meetings provide an opportunity for community members to provide feedback on activities and discuss issues of common interest or concern. Key topics discussed at the meetings in 2024 included environment approvals, operator activity updates, housing, local content and community partnerships. In 2024, we presented on Woodside’s climate approach to the Exmouth Community Reference Group.