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The United States Ambassador to Australia, Jeffrey L. Bleich, has paid tribute to the strength of the relationship between Western Australia and the United States at a special function at UWA's Crawley campus yesterday.

"We have no better friend in the world than Australia and the most dynamic, exciting, interesting part of Australia today is WA," he said.

Mr Bleich was speaking at the launch of a study - Vision, Partnership and Prosperity - published by UWA's Energy and Minerals Institute.  The study highlights the strength of the WA-US strategic alliance in areas such as two-way trade, mining and energy.

Mr Bleich paid tribute to the contributions of US firms such as Apache Energy, Exxon Mobil and Conoco Phillips and Chevron in helping develop WA's energy and minerals sector.

"Forty per cent of Chevron's global investment will be here in WA, beginning 2012," he said.

"With General Electric, America's largest corporation, its third largest market in the world is now Australia."

UWA Vice-Chancellor, Professor Alan Robson, said the strength of the relationship did not just involve trade.

He said UWA had formal agreements with 18 universities throughout the US, including Stanford, Yale, Harvard, California, Arizona, Washington and Michigan - and that 84 US students currently study at UWA.

Professor Robson acknowledged the role of US firms such as Apache Energy and Chevron in funding Chairs at UWA in the fields of petroleum geoscience and natural gas process engineering.

"We're delighted we're the only university that's part of Chevron's Global University Partnership Program and that Chevron has been such a strong supporter," Professor Robson said.

"We've also got a five-year partnership with Apache and this supports scholarships in oil, gas, petroleum, offshore and naval architecture and chemical and process engineering.

Tim Shanahan, the Director of UWA's Energy and Minerals Institute, said WA and the United States enjoyed a productive relationship, and that US investment had helped underpin WA's oil, gas, iron ore and aluminium industries over several decades.

"Last year, the value of production in Western Australia from the energy and minerals sector was $99 billion," he said.  "Much of the capital that has been invested in Western Australia has come from the United States.

"Indeed, the US remains the single largest foreign direct investor in Australia, and Western Australia."

Mr Bleich has been the US ambassador to Australia for just over a year, but already had made four trips to Perth and three to the Pilbara.

"We are extraordinarily enthusiastic about the level of US investment in WA and particularly the opportunities to invest in the Pilbara," he said.

"We are the largest investor in WA, and we're here to stay."

Media references

Janine MacDonald (UWA Public Affairs)  (+61 8)  6488 5563  /  (+61 4) 32 637 716