Labor backs gas ‘to 2050 and beyond’8 May 2024 21:52
Phillip Coorey - May 8, 2024 – 10.30pm
The Albanese government has shed its ambivalence towards gas, adopting a strategy that locks in its use beyond 2050 to underpin renewables, power manufacturing, and help trade partners manage their energy transitions.
Resources Minister Madeleine King said the Future Gas Strategy, to be released on Thursday, will be “based on facts and data, not ideology or wishful thinking”.
It will include measures to help abate emissions from gas production in a bid to dampen a backlash from the Greens, teal independents and elements of the Labor left.
These measures will include promoting the use of carbon capture and storage, long advocated by companies such as Santos, and minimising the release of methane when gas is extracted.
At the same time, the strategy will contain initiatives to facilitate the increased extraction of gas including the introduction of “use it or lose it” provisions to stop companies sitting on untapped reserves.
“Our electricity markets must adapt to remain fit for purpose throughout the energy transformation, and we will assess so-called ‘use it or lose it’ provisions for retention leases, to get the gas we have already discovered flowing sooner,” Ms King said.
Last month, the West Australian government urged Canberra to flex its “use it or lose it” powers on energy companies that hold the rights for major offshore gas fields.
The WA government recommends the Albanese government no longer extend the retention licences on these gas fields, which would force the titleholders to develop the assets or lose them within five years.
New investors will also be needed.
“The strategy also makes it clear that we can’t rely on past investments to get us through the next decades, as existing fields deplete,” Ms King writes in The Australian Financial Review.
“That will mean a continued commitment to exploration, and an openness to the kinds of foreign investment that have helped build the industry into the powerhouse it is today.”
The strategy will be a foundational document for the government and is similar in intent to the Morrison government’s gas-led recovery. That was proposed by Scott Morrison as the nation emerged from the pandemic, but was derided by the then-Labor opposition.
The strategy will underscore the importance of projects, such as Woodside’s Scarborough LNG project off the WA coast and the Beetaloo Basin proposal in the Northern Territory. However, such ventures would still need to clear the usual environmental and other approval hurdles.
LNG was Australia’s third-largest export last financial year, accounting for 14 per cent of all export income.
It is unclear what, if any, implications it will have for the reserve capacity mechanism, which is a back-up that ensures there is sufficient generation capacity in the grid. Energy Minister Chris Bowen and his state counterparts negotiated a mechanism that excluded