theage.com.au
FLOATING PALACE
October 9, 2009
By Scott Rochfort
Royal Dutch Shell was keen to stress yesterday that its planned $US5 billion ($5.54 billion) floating platform off the West Australian coast was about delivering LNG.
Asked if the offshore platform, which is in Australian territorial waters, aimed to dodge WA state taxes, Shell’s head of international upstream operations, Malcolm Brinded, noted: ‘‘If the guys can find a way of not paying taxes, it is always a good idea. [But] that is not one of the drivers, let’s put it that way.”
To hose down any concerns Shell could rip off the good folk of WA, Brinded assured a media conference in Perth there would be hundreds of jobs for local workers on the plant and the Anglo-Dutch company would pay state taxes. He also noted the platform would be 2½ times bigger than the WACA.