How many locals will Arrow’s $10B gas project employ?

Surat Gas Project will start hiring soon, but how many of the promised 1000 jobs will be open to workers from the state's southwest?

THOUSANDS of jobs for Queenslanders were promised when Arrow Energy announced the commencement of its $10 billion Surat Gas Project in the southwest.

To kick things off, it is expected that hundreds of construction jobs will open up on the project - spread between Wandoan and Dalby - but how many regional residents will fill those positions?

An Arrow Energy spokesman told The Western Star that the company has not set quotas for hiring people from local areas or using locally made goods, but it is preferred.

"There are no set percentages; the more local content, the better, but that has to be framed within the context of available skills," he said.

"If a contractor cannot find a local worker with the skills required for a particular role, then they'll have to cast the net wider."

Arrow is outsourcing most of the hiring on the Surat Gas Project, particularly in the construction sector where an estimated 800 jobs will need to be filled over the life of the project.

However, the gas company will be looking for specific skill areas including drilling, civil constructions, logistics, telecommunication infrastructure, facility construction and upgrade, operations and maintenance activities.

The spokesman said it would be up to their contractors to recruit locals for these roles, as the company prefers.

"Arrow will appoint contracting companies to deliver discrete parcels of work in coming weeks and months, but there's no one yet," he said.

"These contractors will do their own recruitment and down the track, there will ultimately be 200-odd operations jobs, which are to be Arrow employees will be advertised on Arrow's website.

"Arrow's present Surat Basin workforce is predominantly local, with more than 80 per cent of them living in the region."

Construction is scheduled to begin on the Surat Gas Project as early as August this year, and it is expected to release its first gas to the market in 2021.

Information on Surat Gas Project jobs can be found on Arrow Energy's website.

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