Australia's Apex Oil, Gas Body Asks Government to Focus on Development of Eastern Australia’s Gas Industry
The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA) has said that government should focus on the development of Eastern Australia’s gas industry and not be distracted by calls for intervention into the domestic gas market.
“APPEA’s submission to the Eastern Australian Domestic Gas Market Study agrees with the report’s assessment that draws a line through any further protectionist calls for a domestic gas reservation policy or so-called ‘national interest test’ and rightly highlights the inefficient and unnecessary nature of such interventions,” Australia’s apex oil and gas industry body said in a statement released Monday.
APPEA Chief Executive David Byers said policies that manipulate eastern Australia’s domestic gas market to deliver perceived benefits to manufacturers would drive away investment in the sector and hurt the wider economy.
“Eastern Australia should not replicate the mistakes made in the West,” Byers said.
Byers added that all governments should work together through COAG to remove regulatory and other barriers to allow more gas to flow to the market.
“Such an approach can be successful if the Victorian and NSW governments actively support onshore gas development through leading practice regulation and community engagement,” he stated.
According to Byers, failing to allow gas producers to produce adequate supply will drive gas prices unnecessarily higher and hurt commercial, industrial, and residential consumers.
“The Queensland and South Australian governments are using effective and proactive regulatory development processes to deliver enormous economic and social benefits. For example, Queensland’s natural coal seam gas industry now employs 30,000 people and has contributed more than $100 million to local community projects and causes,” Byers said.
“Yet in Victoria exploration has ground to a halt and in NSW our industry employs fewer than 300 people while the state heads towards a gas price crunch that will have serious consequences for both industrial and household gas users.”
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