Via the AFR:
Shocking new estimates on gas reserves have slashed the volume of gas expected to be recovered from coal seams in Queensland just as a supply deficit looms in the south with the decline of Bass Strait fields.
…Queensland’s coal seam gas reserves were written down by 1341 petajoules last year, more than all the gas estimated in the Cooper Basin, according to the annual reserves estimate by consultancy EnergyQuest, released exclusively to The Australian Financial Review.
The country’s total gas reserves on a proven plus probable basis fell 4 per cent between December 2016 and February 2018, down by 5355 petajoules from 119,836 PJ to 114,481 PJ…Most write-downs of reserves were in Queensland, in particular at a field held by Shell’s QCLNG, while Australia Pacific LNG and Santos also cut reserves at fields.
Let me remind you that the forecast gas shortage for the east coast is a measly 200Pj. In short, just this year, the cartel just wrote off the equivalent of 25 years of reservation volumes needed to fix the the east coast energy market. That’s how absurd the failure to act on reservation is.
Meanwhile, the main offender pretends it’s all our fault, via The Australian:
Australia is likely to miss out on the next multi-billion-dollar wave of new liquefied natural gas developments, senior Royal Dutch Shell executive Steve Hill has warned, with the nation’s potential growth projects set to struggle to compete against rival proposals in the Middle East, Russia and Africa.
Speaking to The Australian in Singapore, Mr Hill said Australia had plenty of gas to supply both growing domestic markets and LNG exports, but warned the next crop of potential developments was unlikely to be competitive.
Shell, which has interests in the North West Shelf, Prelude and Gorgon LNG projects in Western Australia as well as the coal-seam gas-fed Queensland Curtis LNG plant, is increasingly bullish on the outlook for LNG after a highly anticipated glut in supply was comfortably absorbed by the international market last year.
The glut is real and long lasting. Today’s price is $8.50Gj and falling. It used to be $24Gj. One harsh Winter with a raft of unexpected supply shutdowns is not “comfortably absorbing” anything.
The good news here is there’ll be no more developments to suck what’s left of profitless Aussie gas offshore as well. It will be even better when somebody, anybody, reserves the lousy 200Pj we need to crash energy prices.
