Pandora's Box open?

[Palm]

Thylacine, the great unknown with this are the LNG projects in Australia. If too many of them get the green light labor will get very tight as Australia pays more and certainly has better working conditions. To compete with that png would have to offer significantly higher wages to attract required skilled labor. This is a huge factor that people who want to rail on Henry for brining EWC and Flex to the table fail to remember. History is a great teacher (right STP?). Back in 2009 as far as Asia goes and labor for LNG plants, the projections were that it would be very difficult to find the labor to build IOC's stick-built plant. Exxon got first approval and Australia was projected to quickly build several plants on top of an already tight labor market. So the solution was modular and FLNG so that they could be built elsewhere and assembled in PNG where local labor could be better utilized. That was brilliant of Henry everyone agreed. People have forgotten that and now just want to bash him for coming up with non-stick plants. Even PNG officials were on board for much the same reason.

Now things are a little different, but how different? A little tough to say, but PNG is not the most desirable place due to the extreme conditions out in the bush. The good thing is that Exxon's project is probably to the point that a lot of synergy exists to be able to utilize many of these workers on IOC's plant. That's a huge reason I think XOM may have the advantage as the operator; easier transition of workers AND subs who have already been working there.

Big questions that may be answered next week.