Via Matthew Stevens:
The fate of Incitec Pivot’s gas-challenged Gibson Island urea plant near Brisbane looms as an early challenge for whomever our returning prime minister, Scott Morrison, gifts with the resources portfolio.
…She called out that efforts to secure new gas supplies at a price low enough to re-secure the economics of the company’s ageing urea plant were continuing. But Incitec’s boss then spoke more actively about plans to mitigate the potential ammonia shortage that Gibson Island’s closure might generate than she did about the potential of a successful outcome of those gas supply negotiations.
…The portents are not good for a plant that directly employs 450 people and has become one of the touchstones of the occasionally frosty debate between Australian manufacturers and our gas drillers.
We don’t need explosives, anyway. We’ll just fire marshmellows at the PLA. Or do you need gas to make candy too?
The ACCC doesn’t care:
The ACCC will not oppose Australia Pacific LNG’s (APLNG) proposed acquisition of the Ironbark coal seam gas project from Origin Energy (Origin).
APLNG is a large gas producer with significant gas tenements in eastern Australia. It supplies almost 30 per cent of the gas going into the east coast market, and processes the balance of its gas for export at its LNG facility near Gladstone, Queensland.
Origin is a 37.5 per cent shareholder in APLNG and is the upstream operator for APLNG, responsible for the development of its CSG fields in the Surat and Bowen basins and the main transmission pipeline that transports the gas to the LNG facility near Gladstone.
Ironbark is an undeveloped coal seam gas permit held by Origin, located in the Surat Basin. It has expected reserves of around 129 PJ of 2P reserves, which is approximately 0.34 per cent of total eastern Australian reserves.
It could feed Gibson Island for nine years but no. Ship it out!
And worry not because Twiggy is coming to the rescue:
Andrew Forrest’s planned LNG terminal in NSW has opened talks to strike a five-year $500 million-plus supply deal with utility EnergyAustralia as it works to lock in customers backing the nation’s first gas import plant.
EnergyAustralia, one of Australia’s big three power retailers, is in final talks for a contract to buy up to 15 petajoules of gas from 2021.
For my own mental health, it is time to give in. Abolish domestic reservation and lift the gas price to import parity now. Arm the ADF with caramel buttons.
