Gas enemies unite to condemn Canberra

Advertisement

This is completely bizarre. So bizarre that it reeks of Rum Corps manipulation:

Australia’s east coast energy market is facing a perfect storm of higher global LNG prices, volatile and intermittent renewables penetration, coal plant outages and extreme weather, increasing fears of gas shortages, spiking power bills and blackouts.

Major Australian energy players Senex Energy and APA Group, manufacturers and gas companies have issued a warning to Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton ahead of the federal election that urgent action is ­needed on gas supply and infrastructure to avoid a crippling ­energy crisis.

…Manufacturing Australia chief executive Ben Eade said “if you want competitive Australian manufacturing, you need competitively priced gas”.

Advertisement

“If you want a smooth transition to lower-emissions manufacturing, you need gas … at globally competitive prices, and the fact is that we don’t have those things in eastern Australia,” Mr Eade said.

Senex and APA are killing manufacturing. They feed off the gas export cartel.

Senex led the gas development boycott after Ukraine War energy profiteering triggered some regulatory response. APA just want more pipes to anywhere.

Advertisement

Manufacturing does not need more supply when there is a gigantic hole in its bucket in Curtis Island exports. Prices won’t fall at all.

If we aren’t even going to assess the real problem – a gas export cartel that monopolises east coast reserves and deliberately keeps the local market tight – then how are we going to find a solution?

About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.