Polite chit-chat will be the order of the day when senior oil executives meet with Federal Energy Minister Martin Ferguson or Western Australian Deputy Premier Eric Ripper at the annual conference of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA).
No one will dare ask either man why a state with a coastline that runs for 20,781km, with a population of just 2 million, has a shortage of suitable oil and gas processing locations.
And no one will dare ask why it is that as soon as an oil company suggests a possible coastal site for a processing facility it suddenly becomes subject to world heritage listing, or the private preserve of fornicating fauna.
Why do projects proposed for remote locations face such hurdles?
The situation is such obvious nonsense that it falls into the category of the elephant in the corner of the room. We all know it's there but no one dares speak about it.
The Slug thinks it's time for a little more honesty from government and the oil industry itself.
Why can't both sides get together, admit the nonsense, and pinpoint sites on the coast which are either definitely no-go areas, or definitely suitable for industrial development.
Oil explorers, quite rightly, will say they're not sure where the next discovery will be made, and cannot identify a likely location for a processing facility.
Government, however, can do something now. Government can draw up a list of preferred sites, places suitable for a new port, or gas liquefaction facility, and it can identify right now the quarantined areas.
The two obvious examples of how land availability is hindering the petroleum industry on the west coast are Chevron's troubled Gorgon project and the proposed Ichthys project of Inpex.
In both cases the companies involved have either been misled by government, or taken dud advice on what they can - and can't - do with the land they need on which to build a gas processing facility.
Chevron is probably the guiltiest party at Gorgon. The WA Government is the guiltiest at Ichthys.
The problems of Chevron's choice of Barrow Island as an onshore facility are well documented. Chevron has done a great job of looking after Barrow for decades, but it was always going to be a tough location for a major liquefied natural gas project.
However, it was also a location chosen because the WA Government made it pretty clear there weren't too many mainland options, a staggering position to adopt given that a few thousand spare kilometres of coastland have nothing on them.
Ichthys is much more of a government farce. Islands off the Kimberley coast are uninhabited and few people - if any - ever visit them.
At the sweep of a pen the WA authorities could have said "go for it", rather than force Inpex to ponder an onshore site across the border in the Northern Territory. Inpex has every reason to feel hard done by.
If the past looks bleak, the future is worse.
BHP Billiton wants an onshore site for its Scarborough project. Shell is keen to develop its gas assets in waters off the northwest coast. Hess Corporation is about to start one of Australia's biggest exploration projects and, if successful, will also want an onshore site.
What, it might reasonably be asked, is the WA Government doing to accommodate these demands?
What, it might reasonably be asked, are industry leaders saying to government leaders at APPEA?
"Another cucumber sandwich, minister?"
