Skip to content

Bechtel’s Impact Report

Wheatstone LNG

Ashburton North, Western Australia
Wheatstone aerial view

Expanding Options for Clean, Reliable Natural Gas Resources for the 21st Century

Bechtel is Chevron Australia’s engineering, procurement, construction, and commissioning contractor for the downstream scope on the Chevron-operated Wheatstone LNG project. As one of Australia’s largest resources projects, it will provide a more secure supply in addition to such significant economic benefits as employment, government revenue, and local business opportunities.

Image Gallery

Safety Through Innovation

We teamed with our customer and our subcontractors to develop a very strong environmental, safety, and quality culture. Together we committed to Bechtel's methodology to do work responsibly and safely, and to do it right the first time—every time.

We applied innovative approaches to safety—such as an in-vehicle system that monitors speed, location, and time as well as braking, acceleration, and other functions in all project vehicles. We also implemented our People-Based Safety program, a project-wide peer-to-peer, no-name no-blame approach to monitoring and improving jobsite safety. The foundation: Our belief that all accidents are preventable.

In 2018, the Wheatstone project won two of Bechtel's Environment, Safety, and Health (ESH) awards—Project of the Year and the Project Management Excellence Award. The awards are presented to the teams who make outstanding contributions and demonstrate best practices in construction, ESH, and project management. 

Broadening Economic Participation in Onslow

The Wheatstone project is approximately 7 miles (12 kilometers) west of Onslow on the Pilbara coast of Western Australia. Forty percent of Onslow’s 1,000 citizens are aboriginal. More than 170 are craft workers, while others are involved in various jobs supporting the project, including office administration and hospitality. Yet, prior to the construction there were almost no local, aboriginal-owned businesses supplying materials and services to the project.

Through the engagement efforts of Bechtel, our customer, and partners, the number has now grown to more than a dozen: handling construction and earthworks, fencing, pipe laying, labor recruitment, and workforce development. We helped create Globe Hill, an indigenous labor-recruitment company, and Ganthalha Enterprises, a business that provides cultural awareness training to more than 4,000 project workers.

LNG Production at Wheatstone

The Wheatstone Project’s journey to first LNG production on Train 1.