Thank you very much Mr Spence, Barry Haase the Federal Member for Kalgoorlie, ladies and gentlemen. I am really delighted to be here. I am delighted to share this 15th anniversary with Woodside of the first trans shipment of LNG to Japan, to thank the company and all of those who have worked with it for the extraordinary achievements of the last 50 years in the case of Woodside and the last 15 years in the case of LNG. It has been a story of great progress, of safe reliable delivery and a remarkable contribution to the export income of Australia.
Keith was kind enough to mention my role in that historic agreement with the Chinese on the Guangdong Province and the supply over 25 years of LNG to China, a great and remarkable contract and one of course that joined the rather more longstanding arrangement with Japan and Korea, both of whom, and their companies and utilities, have proved to be remarkably friendly and good and reliable customers of the venture. That particular agreement, concluded in August of 2002, was a wonderful message to the world of what Australians working together can achieve, because it was an effort between the company, the Western Australian Government, the Federal Government, previous Western Australian Governments - and I pay tribute to the contribution of Richard Court when he was Premier of Western Australia, as well as the current Western Australian Premier Dr Gallop - and also to wonderful diplomatic representation in Beijing. And a tremendous effort was put into winning that contract. It was a great team effort and it was Australia united working together against some very fierce competition. I mean when you get, as you all know, this is a highly competitive business, there's a lot of natural gas and a lot of LNG around the world, there's a lot of demand for it.
I've been trying to sell some of it to the Governator, to Governor Schwarzenegger. I was in Los Angeles recently extolling the virtues of it to him, and they sent a delegation out and I don't, you know, in the end I don't mind in the end who ends up supplying it, I'm neutral on those subjects, as long as it comes from Australia. But the reality is that California is going to need a lot of energy in the future. They have quite an energy problem. They have an over-regulated market and they have a lot of challenges in the future, and they're going to face quite a pressing need in the not too distant future, and I would like to see Australia as part of the solution to that problem. And it just demonstrates again that you can have close relationships with the United States, without in any way diminishing your close relationships with our very loyal and longstanding customers in Japan and Korea and more recently in China, and it's a real delight as Prime Minister of this country to go to China and to Japan and Korea and to be told how much store they place on these longstanding arrangements they've had.
So in commemorating Woodside's 15 years of secure and reliable LNG supply, can I pay tribute to the company's safety record. Safety is a very important issue in this industry. Because of the product that you're dealing with, safety is self-evidently critical. But the safety record of Australians in relation to this industry is second to none. When the Californian delegation saw me in Sydney a few weeks ago, they remarked upon the safety standards and the safety quality of the industry here, and that's a very big tribute to all of you. And since production began in 1989, I'm told that the North West Shelf venture has delivered more than 1,550 LNG cargoes to Japan without missing a single delivery. And that reliability, which in my view that record of reliability was about the key issue in sealing the contract with the Chinese. They wanted product, they wanted it from a stable country, and they wanted reliability of supply, and we were able to offer all of those things. And that really has been the cornerstone of this company and its achievements and the capture of new markets.
When first proposed in 1979, the scale of the North West Shelf venture investment... $9 billion had never been seen before in this state. And the level of capital investment has now risen to $14.5 billion, with at least a further 5.8 needed by 2010. So it really has helped transform not only the industry but the Pilbara, and I congratulate everybody involved. I congratulate the company on its 50th anniversary. I don't know whether your 50th anniversary is closer to Mick Jagger's, but we'll go away and consult diaries and sort of work that out. And I also understand that today you've signed a sale and purchase agreement with (inaudible) power company. And can I just say one other thing - that that is how very important it is to the Government, and I know that the company, for the early entry into force of the International Unitisation Agreement, and that should be ratified and signed as soon as possible, and we're certainly continuing our efforts as a government to encourage the government of East Timor to do that. We've been a very good friend to the people of East Timor. The people of East Timor have no better friend than Australia, and we've been very fair and very generous since our other discussions with them about other issues, and as far as this agreement is concerned, it should be signed and entered into force, ratified as soon as possible, and that's very important for your company and very important for Australians.
So ladies and gentlemen, congratulations to all of you for the contributions that you have made to Australia's growth and expansion and wealth and export capacity over the last 15 years, and particularly more generally over the last 50 years. The best years for Woodside are ahead of us, I can assure you of that, because the potential if we continue to do things right, is absolutely unlimited. I have great pleasure in unveiling this plaque and congratulating the company and its employees for what together you have achieved.
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