Australian LNG

Via Herald Sun: Baby Boomers, Millennials, mums and dads and every state and territory are united on one thing this election — cost of living is their number one issue.

Via The Australian: Energy Networks Australia warned in a submission to the Senate’s recent electric vehicle inquiry that growing numbers of EVs, combined with the nation’s flat energy pricing structure, could worsen energy peaks and exceed the capacity of low-voltage networks.

Here is the future as the LNG glut takes shape in Asia, via Reuters: U.S. producers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) are wooing buyers with offers to sell gas priced against benchmarks other than U.S.

God save me from the AEMO: The Australian Energy Market Operator’s (AEMO) latest analysis finds that supply from existing and committed gas developments is expected to provide sufficient resources to meet demand in southern and south-eastern Australia until 2023.

Via the AFR: The centrepiece of Labor’s plan to reduce carbon emissions – a baseline and credit scheme for the nation’s top 250 emitters – appears doomed with the Coalition opposed to the entire policy and the Greens hostile towards several elements, including letting companies offset emissions by buying international carbon permits.

Via The Australian: Bill Shorten will impose an ­aggressive pollution cap on ­industry and business if elected, in a bid to meet Labor’s ambitious climate change targets, and will push for half of all new cars sold in Australia to be electric within a decade.

Nobody but MB readers seem to understand the level of insult for Australians Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is readying in the Budget: Josh Frydenberg says he will deliver a responsible budget on Tuesday, after announcing the government will deliver cheques to four million welfare recipients to help pay their energy bills.

Check out this great news, via Reuters: Vitol Group’s head of liquefied natural gas trading said on Wednesday that the outlook was bleak for LNG in the short term due to an “incredibly” oversupplied market, which would lead to some output shutdowns.

It seems there are sensible economists in Heaven, via AFR: The Uniting Church in Australia has lined up against powerful gas producers, telling the federal government that proposed changes to the petroleum taxation regime are far too generous and leave the community shouldering part of the risk for poorly conceived exploration programs.

You losers!

Via the AFR: NSW Labor says it does not believe assurances from Santos that all gas from its proposed Narrabri gas project would be sold to local industry, rather than exported, doubling down on its pre-election declaration that the $3 billion development is ‘dead’.

The ACCC was out with its LNG net-back price yesterday: It’s calculations for net back are higher than mine largely because of this: For a given measure of Gladstone FOB prices in A$/GJ, the next step in the calculation of netback prices is to deduct LNG plant costs.

Because that is its plan.

Talk about taking the mickey.

As the idiotic debate around new coal fired power stations goes on, there is finally some good news in the fight against the real culprit in utility price spikes, the gas cartel.

The reason why is obvious at The Australian: Coal-fired power generation would fall by 60 per cent within the next decade to meet Labor’s 45 per cent emissions-reduction target, leading to the likely closure of more than half the existing east coast plants, according to ­independent expert modelling.

Examine this chart of Australia’s export performance from yesterday: Coal and iron ore have delivered new export revenue booms.

Via the AFR: Historical prices for gas would not even cover the cost of production now, said Johanna Boothey, commercial head of ExxonMobil Australia, which spent $120 million on a fruitless two-well search for new gas in the Bass Strait last year and recently completed a $5.5 billion investment in a new gas development.

The east coast gas cartel of BHP/Exxon, Santos, Origin and Shell has always been a grave national security threat given energy is the lifeblood of the modern economy.

Via EnergyQuest at the AFR: One third of Queensland’s new $84 billion LNG export industry is likely to be forced to close down by 2025 due to shortages of coal seam gas reserves and the need for shipments to be diverted to local users, according to a detailed analysis of the sector.

Australians are paying more for their gas than the Japanese again. Asian spot prices are today at approximately $9Gj. On the east coast of Australia they are approximately $10Gj. Under the terms of the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism (ADGSM) the local export net-back and spot price should now be $7Gj.