The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association said the NSW government’s decision announced last week to ‘effectively lockup most of NSW from gas development is a body blow for local consumers, thousands of jobs, the environment and businesses’.
“If NSW is to meet its energy agreement with the Commonwealth, it will have to now build an import terminal and at today’s LNG prices, that means customers would be paying well over $20/GJ for delivered gas,” APPEA NSW director Ashley Wells said.
“This decision to effectively limit future gas development to a single project – the Narrabri gas project – will mean NSW customers face higher gas prices for the long term.
“The cheapest gas is the gas closest to market.
“This shortsighted decision will mean higher gas prices in NSW are the norm not the exception,” Mr Wells said.
“For the NSW government to effectively ban a proven, safe and highly regulated industry doesn’t make sense.
“The failure of NSW to respond to increasing gas demand and develop its gas reserves will have unfortunate consequences, in the form of lost jobs, higher energy prices, and foregone economic opportunity. Manufacturing jobs will go to other states and territories or overseas.
“It means NSW will continue to have to import its gas from interstate for the foreseeable future. It has been well-documented by the ACCC that currently transporting natural gas from Queensland down to southern customers already adds an extra $2-$4 in costs – representing a 20-40 per cent increase in the wholesale gas price.
“New gas supply is essential not only to meet our existing needs, but to support NSW’s transition to a renewable energy future. As we have seen in South Australia, Britain, the US and elsewhere, natural gas plays a critical role in complementing intermittent renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. Lowering greenhouse gas emissions is also critical and together natural gas and renewables have a major role to play in reducing the greenhouse gas footprint of the coal-dependent NSW energy system.
“It could have been done so differently, to everyone’s benefit. In Queensland, farmers and the gas industry mutually prosper and landholders have been paid hundreds of millions in payments for access to gas reserves on their land.
“Most people think gas is only used in electricity generation but in fact it is used doing things such as providing feedstock to manufacturing plants and helping create everyday products such as clothes, computers, phones, fertilisers and vital medical equipment such as heart valves.
“These are things other forms of energy such as renewables simply can’t do.
“Our industry is doing the heavy lifting when it comes to combatting climate change. Already the Australian government estimates Australia’s LNG has the potential to lower emissions in LNG importing countries by around 170 million tonnes of CO2-e each year by providing an alternative to higher emissions fuels – the equivalent of almost one-third of Australia’s total annual emissions.
“The need for gas for a cleaner energy future is publicly supported by the United Nations, CSIRO, Australia’s Chief Scientist, the Australian Energy Market Operator, the Australian Energy Market Commission, the former Chief Scientist of NSW, the Independent Planning Commission and the Australian Council of Learned Academies.
See more like this:
- ‘The need for projects like the Narrabri gas project has never been more important for NSW’: Santos
- Govt confirms key role of Narrabri gas project
- Natural gas development vital for regional communities
