Question Without Notice No. 31 asked in the Legislative Council on 16 May 2017 by Hon Robin Chapple
Parliament: 40 Session: 1
WOODSIDE — KARRATHA GAS PLANT — ELECTRICAL FAULT
31. Hon ROBIN CHAPPLE to the minister representing the Minister for Mines and Petroleum:
I refer to an incident that occurred at Woodside Energy's Karratha gas plant at 11.30 am on Saturday, 15 April 2017 and a series of photographs.
(1) What was the electrical fault that caused the incident?
(2) Has an inquiry into the incident been established?
(3) Was this a code black emergency and is this the highest level of emergency out of how many levels?
(4) Were workers at the plant mustered on site or ordered to evacuate; and, if so, for how long?
(5) Were members of the public at adjacent beaches warned about the incident and evacuated?
(6) What was the amount of gas that was vented or flared?
Hon STEPHEN DAWSON replied:
I thank the honourable member for some notice of the question. The following information has been provided to me by the Minister for Mines and Petroleum.
(1) An electrical fault in a substation as a result of a compressor motor short circuit caused the incident.
(2) Yes. An investigation is ongoing.
(3) ''Code black'' is not a Woodside or Department of Mines and Petroleum term. Four categories are used by DMP to describe incident events. This incident is currently defined as a category 3, the highest category being category 4, requiring Woodside to thoroughly investigate and report the findings to DMP.
(4) Workers were mustered on site and there was no evacuation. DMP has not received information on how long workers were held at their mustering sites.
(5) No.
(6) The flaring of gas is consistent with the control processes for this type of incident. The amount of gas flared will be determined from the ongoing investigation.