NORTHERN Territory Chief Minister Paul Henderson says oil and gas companies should relocate to Darwin as Perth is on a "road to nowhere".
Speaking at the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association Annual Conference in Brisbane, Mr Henderson labeled the WA capital "yesterday's heroes" as he challenged leading oil industry players to move offices and staff north.
Western Australia and Perth are yesterdays heroes. The future lies to the north not to the west the road to Perth is a road to nowhere, Mr Henderson said.
"If you look to our north - within a four hour flying time is a potential customer base of 400 million people, in the fastest growing part of the world's economy.
"Over the next twenty years, growth in Asia will outstrip Europe and North America. This is where Australia's future lies, not south or west of Perth.
"Darwin is a modern, multicultural city with a market on its doorstep of hundreds of millions of people and I would challenge you to say why would you be anywhere else?
"We have the industry capability and capacity that we didn't have a decade ago and that is continuing to go from strength to strength," Mr Henderson said.
Mr Hendersons comments came less than a month after Darwins hopes of housing a $5 billion gas plant were dashed. Woodside Petroleum Ltd announced last month that they would instead use a floating platform in the Timor Sea, about 450km north of Darwin.
Joint venture partners in the project include ConocoPhillips, Shell and Osaka Gas, who all unanimously agreed to build the floating platform.
This didnt deter Mr Henderson from launching an all out assault on Perth.
Before announcing a series of meetings between himself and oil majors Inpex, Santos, Conoco Phillips, Magellan Petroleum, Shell, ENI and Nexus Energy, he further spruiked NT credentials saying: "Where else in Australia can you have greenfields development within a ten minute drive to the capital city? And have a small and responsive Government with a can do approach around facilitating development."
"That doesn't mean we cut corners - it simply means we have a positive approach to attracting investment not a red tape bureaucracy to bog down and obstruct development."
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