Chair of the Western Australian Economics and Industry Standing Committee Inquiry Mike Nahan said that there had been too much focus on creating relatively low-level jobs in areas such as steel fabrication and not enough attention on high-end engineering jobs for projects such as Woodside Petroleum’s Pluto Gas Project and the Chevron-operated Gorgon LNG Development.

“We are probably the highest-cost construction location in the world. Our comparative advantage lies more in the higher-end value engineering skills, and research and development. With the oil and gas sector booming now, we need to focus on bringing some of the high-end engineering and design work here,” Mr Nahan said.

Mr Nahan said that it has been speculated that Pluto train 2 and 3 front-end engineering and design (FEED) contractors Foster Wheeler, WorleyParsons and KBR will perform FEED work and later detail design and procurement phases in London.

Mr Nahan disagreed with the argument that conducting FEED and procurement in London is cheaper.

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“We have missed all of Pluto, we have probably missed Gorgon, but Wheatstone and Browse are still on the horizon,” Mr Nahan said.

Mr Nahan believes that the issue could be addressed through a policy of encouraging engineering work to be carried out in Perth in order to follow international examples and use the state’s resources wealth to develop a local engineering service industry.

“I am not arguing that we distort the decision-making process, but Perth for the first time has a scope of activity and a scale which should allow us to start developing a centre of excellence [in engineering design].

“When you are in a boom, everyone is happy, but you need to look beyond that. Eventually, the construction load will wane and we need to have spin-off activity,” Mr Nahan said.

The standing committee will report its findings to the Western Australian Parliament in March.