Aiming to help secure up to 70,000 skilled workers and 16,000 ongoing positions nationally by 2020, the taskforce will involve representatives from industry, governments and peak associations.

The taskforce will work with resources industry, governments and education providers to examine projects coming online over the next ten years, including:

  • The location, type and number of jobs needed
  • The type of skills needed, which builds on industry skills surveys already conducted
  • Existing education and training programs
  • Current industry initiatives to address labour and skills requirements.

Federal Parliamentary Secretary for Western and Northern Australia Gary Gray will chair the taskforce, which will report to Federal Minister for Resources, Energy and Tourism Martin Ferguson and Federal Employment Participation Minister Mark Arbib.

The Gorgon LNG Development will be one of the taskforce’s first case studies.The project is expected to create 3,500 direct construction jobs on Barrow Island and approximately 10,000 direct and indirect jobs during peak production.

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“By taking a national approach, we will look to get training underway as early as possible so that the skills required by the Gorgon project and other major resource projects are available when and where they are needed,” Mr Arbib said.

A joint venture between Chevron as operator, ExxonMobil and Shell, the Gorgon LNG Development is located on Barrow Island in Western Australia, and involves the installation of a subsea gathering system and pipelines from the Gorgon and Io/Jansz fields to Barrow Island. Three 5 million tonnes per annum LNG trains, to be located on the central-east coast of Barrow Island, will process the gas. LNG will then be shipped to international markets while domestic gas will be delivered via a 90 kilometre subsea pipeline to the Western Australian mainland, interconnecting with the Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline.