You will be unsurprised to hear that the gas situation is worse than feared:
In its June 2024 gas inquiry interim report being released on Friday, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission concludes shortages on the east coast market will emerge by 2027 “unless new sources of supply are made available”.
“This is earlier than our last forecast (in December 2023) of a possible shortfall from 2028, reflecting lower forecast supply due to delays in anticipated regulatory approvals for new projects and problems with legacy gas fields,” it said.
“Import terminals may also help to address supply gaps, although their viability is subject to international prices for LNG and the terminals securing foundation customers.”
Yes, let’s import our own gas:
“The gas industry has got away with more in Australia than it would in any other country,” Sims said this week.
Sims admits that while he did not advocate for a domestic reservation scheme on Queensland gas fields while at the ACCC, “in hindsight” it would have avoided the siphoning of gas from the local market to meet overseas orders.
Hilariously, Mr Sims now runs the Superpower Institute, a think tank based upon Australia becoming a renewable energy superpower. The government cites it as some kind of oracular truth. What a joke.
Don’t worry; your oligarchs have the answer. We’ll import our own gas via LNG terminals at nosebleed international prices:
It could even mean buying gas from Queensland that the companies have offered to the more lucrative global market but would sell to an Australian buyer if the price were right.
Gas is currently supplied from Queensland to NSW and Victoria via a pipeline, which is running at full capacity. It appears too late to build another now.
Building another pipeline would cost billions and take decades to repay, which makes it an unlikely investment prospect given the uncertainty over how long gas will remain a staple fuel during the shift to clean energy.
Does the pipeline run full tilt all year? No. Only in winter. So build some gas tanks in the south and run the pipeline at full capacity every day to fill them up for winter. This is what the US and Europe both do.
It’s what everybody who is not an energy superidiot does!
There is one piece of good news. The global price of gas will crater in the coming years:
Gas import terminals will bring these prices to Australia but only at a price premium.
Applying export levies fixes this problem. All the gas piped and shipped from QLD will be at whatever price we set, not the international market.
There is no impediment to Australia consuming its own cheap gas. There is only a swathe of economic parasites preventing it from happening.
