Gas cartel trumpets capture of Mad King

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Martians can get Australian gas:

The UK is about to receive liquefied natural gas from far-off Australia for the first time in at least six years, highlighting the European region’s desperation in grappling with its worst energy crisis in decades.

But back home the price is still hovering around $20Gj and the price of electricity is still high enough to double utility bills over the next year:

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The treasonous AFR is still pushing cartel propaganda:

Origin Energy’s joint LNG venture has diverted some gas earmarked for the booming export market into the domestic market to help energy retailers and avert a forcible intervention by the federal government.

…Origin’s joint venture with ConocoPhillips and Sinopec, Australia Pacific LNG (APLNG), said it had made an additional 7.9 peta joules (PJ) of gas available to the domestic market over three months to July. The total domestic gas demand for the east coast market in calendar year 2022 is estimated to be 550 PJ, according to Energy Quest, a consultancy.

Khoa Dao, the chief executive officer of APLNG said the gas sales over the past three months were in response to tight gas supply, and in addition to APLNG’s medium- and long-term contract commitments to domestic customers

“Demand for gas on the east coast rose sharply over May and June after a cold snap, coal power plant outages and coal supply challenges, as well as lower renewables output due to weather, increasing the reliance on gas-fired generation,” Mr Dao said.

“These factors contributed to tight supply in the market, and Australia Pacific LNG responded by executing a number of short-term sales with customers, including EnergyAustralia and AGL.

Actually, APLNG responded by gouging the living daylights out of desperate power generators. The last time I looked we have a winter every year so that excuse is ludicrous.

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Meanwhile, Santos, the baleful company most responsible for the entire mess, is trumpeting its capture of the Resources Minister Mad King:

On east coast gas, Mr Gallagher praised Resources Minister Madeleine King’s “very mature and balanced approach” to the issue of gas supply for the country’s east coast market, contrasting that with the Morrison government.

“In the past that’s not always been the case and indeed with, dare I say it, chest-beating, threats to intervene in markets, which has never happened of course, never occurred, [but] only causes that instability,” Mr Gallagher said on a conference call.

We need a $7Gj trigger price installed in the ADGSM and that is all we need.

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I think it fair to conclude that if Mr Gallagher is so happy with Mad King then you should prepare to be fucked by the same.

At this juncture, it behooves Mad King to make a personal guarantee to the Australian people that she will not accept a juicy post-politics sinecure from any form of extractive industry.

Isn’t ScoMo terrible!

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.