Australia approved Woodside Energy's request to extend the life of its North West Shelf gas plant until 2070 on Wednesday, after a six-year review process dogged by delays, appeals and backlash from activist green groups.
The North West Shelf facility, located on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia, is the country's oldest and largest liquefied natural gas plant and a key supplier to Asian markets.
Environment Minister Murray Watt said in a statement the decision to approve the extension of the project would be subject to strict conditions, "particularly relating to the impact of air emissions levels from the operation."
Woodside shares were trading higher through the day but jumped after the announcement to be up four per cent in the afternoon.
The project's existing approval was set to expire in 2030.
Woodside's extension application, lodged in 2018, had been caught up in state and federal assessment processes due to competing concerns over energy security and its environmental impact.
The extension lays the groundwork for Woodside, Australia's top gas producer, to bring new gas fields online to feed the LNG plant.
The Western Australia state government cleared the project in December after considering nearly 800 appeals launched by activists. The federal government twice delayed making a call in the lead up to the May general election.
With the North West Shelf's original offshore gas fields in decline, the decades-long extension opens the door for Woodside to develop its long dormant Browse offshore project to supply gas to the Karratha plant.
Woodside's partners in the North West Shelf venture are units of BP, Chevron, Shell, Japan's Mitsui Co and Mitsubishi Corp and China's CNOOC.
(Reporting by Christine Chen and Renju Jose in Sydney; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Sonali Paul)