The Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources, Mr Ian Macfarlane, said he would not act as “circuit breaker” between Woodside and Shell, which support the radical floating LNG plant, and Phillips Petroleum, which would like to see an onshore plant near Darwin.

Macfarlane said governments get themselves in “diabolical” trouble when they try to second-guess business people.

“The national interest in relation to Sunrise is to have that resource exploited. If bringing it ashore, as Shell and Woodside claim, makes the project unviable, then it is not in the national interest to make them come ashore,” the Minister said.

“My preference is always going to be that the gas comes onshore, but it is my second priority.

“My first priority is to get the gas out of the seabed. Once you have that as a priority you have then got to bow to the commercial judgement of the companies and that has got to be resolved between the three.”