Oil and gas company Royal Dutch Shell has offloaded its holdings in a major gas project in Western Australia.

The Anglo-Dutch company is selling an 8 per cent stake in the Wheatstone-Iago joint venture gas fields, and also a 6.4 per cent holding in the Wheatstone gas project to Kuwait’s Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (KUFPEC) for $1.3 billion.

KUFPEC is one of the existing joint venture partners, and Shell says the sale of its stake will have no effect on operations.

Shell’s chief executive officer Ben van Beurden says the company remains committed to Australia’s energy industry.

“We are refocusing our investment to where we can add the most value with Shell’s capital and technology,” he noted in a statement.

“We are making hard choices in our worldwide portfolio to improve Shell’s capital efficiency.”

At the same time, a major coal seam gas project in Queensland, 50 per cent owned by Shell, is facing significant job cuts.

Late last year the State and Federal governments gave Arrow Energy the green light to build a multi-billion dollar LNG export plant at Gladstone and gas fields in the Surat Basin.

The company says it has now reviewed staffing levels in order to manage costs.

It will not say how many jobs will be lost, however the ABC understands around 250 staff are likely to be laid off.

Arrow says it is looking at joint ventures to develop its Surat gas project.