WA's resources could be worth $8.1 trillion. Here's what that means for your career

A new report has put a number on something most people working in WA resources have felt for years: there is a lot more in the ground than what's currently being dug up, pumped or shipped.

Unearthing Potential: The Scale of Western Australia's Resource Opportunity, commissioned by the Chamber of Minerals and Energy of WA (CME) and modelled by EY-Parthenon, estimates that WA's currently identified mineral and energy resources could support $8.1 trillion in saleable product value if developed over the coming decades. That's larger than the entire German economy.

We repeat: Larger than the entire German economy.

The report also estimates $1.9 trillion in cumulative economic activity, $476 billion in WA royalties, $855 billion in Commonwealth company tax, and $1.1 trillion in total wages paid to the people who build and run these projects.

It's a big number, and it comes with an important asterisk: this is modelled potential, not a forecast or a guarantee. The report is explicit about that. But it's still one of the most detailed pictures yet of what's actually sitting under WA, and it landed the same week the State Government put its own figure on the table, Mines and Petroleum Minister Daniel Pastorelli described WA as having "an extraordinary resource base" and "a highly skilled workforce," citing more than $50 billion in major projects currently underway and $34 billion invested in the sector in 2025 alone, a decade-high.

Where the number comes from

The $8.1 trillion is the "central scenario", one of three modelled outcomes, based on 80% of WA's identified resource base being developed at average commodity prices over the past five years. The low-case scenario (60% developed, softer prices) comes in at $4.9 trillion. The high-case scenario (100% developed, stronger prices) reaches $12.1 trillion. Nobody knows exactly where reality will land, that depends on investment, infrastructure, approvals, technology and global demand, but even the conservative end of the range is a generational opportunity.

The modelling covers 28 commodities across six groups: bulk commodities (iron ore, bauxite, potash), precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, palladium), base metals (copper, nickel, zinc, lead, cobalt, molybdenum), battery and critical minerals (lithium, graphite, rare earths, vanadium, manganese, tungsten, gallium), mineral sands (ilmenite, rutile, zircon) and energy resources (natural gas, crude oil, condensate, LPG, uranium). Iron ore and natural gas still carry the bulk of the value, but the report is clear that WA's opportunity is no longer a one- or two-commodity story.

What it means for jobs

Strip away the trillions and the numbers that matter most if you're building a career are these: an average of 165,000 construction jobs a year and 158,000 operational jobs a year, sustained across the modelling period. For context, that construction figure is comparable to WA's entire current construction workforce, and the operational figure is roughly two-thirds of Australia's entire current mining workforce, which gives a sense of how much of this opportunity is still ahead of us rather than behind us.

Those jobs won't all look like the roles that exist today. The report groups the resources sector's future contribution into six pathways, economic development, advanced industries, energy security, digital infrastructure, transport and the built environment, and strategic supply chains, which between them touch everything from steel and transmission lines to semiconductors, EV batteries and defence supply chains. That breadth is exactly why the skills required are broadening too, a topic we dig into in the next piece in this series.

Real projects, not just modelling

None of this is only a spreadsheet exercise. The Minister's announcement named a string of projects already moving: Scarborough, Crux and Jansz-Io Compression in LNG; Western Ridge and Brockman Syncline 1 in iron ore; and the Eneabba Rare Earths Refinery and Mt Holland expansion in critical minerals. The State Government also pointed to nearly 400,000 resources-sector jobs already supported, $18 million a year in exploration funding, and more than $250 million invested through the Exploration Incentive Scheme since it began. CME, marking its 125th year, used the report to make the case that the conversation about WA resources should be about possibility as much as it is about the challenges of getting projects built.

The takeaway for job seekers and employers

Whether the final number ends up closer to $4.9 trillion or $12.1 trillion, the report's underlying message is straightforward: WA's identified resource base is nowhere near fully developed, and the workforce needed to develop it, engineers, tradespeople, technicians, environmental scientists, data and automation specialists, and a lot of people who haven't started their resources career yet, is going to be in demand for decades.

If you're weighing up whether now is the time to get into the sector, or to train for the next role rather than the current one, this report is a useful reality check on the scale of what's ahead. We'll be unpacking the skills, the timelines and the individual commodities in more detail over the coming weeks.

Source: Chamber of Minerals and Energy of Western Australia, "Unearthing Potential: The Scale of Western Australia's Resource Opportunity," prepared by EY-Parthenon, September 2026; WA Government announcement, 14 September 2026. Figures are modelled, indicative estimates over a 75-year period to 2100 under the central scenario, not forecasts of what will actually be produced or when.