Presentation to the APGA virtual conference 20 October 2020
In this presentation Graeme Bethune said LNG is the only solution to projected domestic shortages of natural gas in the short-term.
The Australian gas market operator AEMO and the ACCC have predicted declining volumes of gas coming out of Victoria and South Australia’s Cooper Basin.
The East Coast gas market is increasingly dependent on additional gas being transported south from Queensland, but those supplies are also predicted to begin to slow in around five years’ time.
There are some possible new sources of gas, for example in the Beetaloo Basin in the Northern Territory, but most are challenging geologically and/or politically and far from markets.
“The fundamental problem of east coast gas is not an imperfect market or a lack of infrastructure, but rather a looming shortage of commercial gas resources close to the market,” Graeme said.
“We believe that LNG imports are the only option. LNG imports are the only guaranteed way of quickly increasing supply.” Other countries such as Argentina and Chile had faced similar supply and demand imbalances and had solved the problem by building LNG import terminals.
To read more download the presentation below…