The gas cartel is up to its old tricks. The price is crazy:
So, the moment that the wind doesn’t blow (11% of output is very low)…
…the power price spikes on more gas usage:
The cartel is now proposing the most toxic merger in the history of energy markets worldwide:
The logic in an $80 billion merger between Woodside and Santos has only become more compelling as the year has gone on.
Across the globe, energy’s biggest players have become even bigger. In the space of a few fateful weeks in October, ExxonMobil bought shale giant Pioneer for $US60 billion ($91.8 billion), while Chevron paid $US53 billion for Hess, a Caribbean-focused oil group.
The merger of Woodside and Santos would create a globally relevant LNG player to stand among these giants. But it would also recognise the sharp and surprising pivot at the top of the global energy sector back towards fossil fuels.
This merger is worst-case scenario for Australia for many reasons.
First, STO and WDS have two of the most rapacious and vicious corporate cultures anywhere. Putting them together is like marrying Jeffrey Dahmer to Elizabeth Bathory.
Second, WDS owns the gas reserves of the Gippsland JV, while STO owns the short-of-gas export GLNG QLD gas export terminal. Guess where already declining Victorian gas reserves will go if these two get together? Guess who will be left short again?
Third, ditto STO’s Narrabri project, which will already pollute the Great Artesian Basin.
Fourth, both STO and WDS are prolific lobbyists. Putting them together in Australia’s corrupt political economy is to make an irresistible force dedicated to the derailment of climate change mitigation.
It doesn’t matter what other “synergies” there are in this deal. It must not go ahead in the Australian national interest.
Which means it almost certainly will.
