Albo’s $12Gj gas price cap joke gets louder every day:
Triggering another round of electricity price madness:
There is no movement to fix it and so it will continue worsening until there is a policy shift. Not under industry-captured Resources Minister Mad King.
Indeed, Albo’s regime of energy rebates covers up the underlying energy shock and incentivises the East Coast gas cartel to rort even harder.
In NSW, the cartel is sucking money out of every economic orifice:
Origin Energy’s giant Eraring coal power station in NSW produced at its highest level for five years in 2023-24, exposing the market’s heavy reliance on the generator that made its planned closure in 2025 unfeasible.
But the difficulties involved in running the 2880-megawatt generator – the biggest power station in the country – were also highlighted in Origin’s quarterly report on Wednesday, in which the electricity and gas supplier revealed a jump in coal costs that was double what some analysts expected.
…At APLNG, June quarter revenue rose 2 per cent from the March quarter to $2.6 billion, but full-year revenue slid 12 per cent, mostly due to lower gas prices.
…Its average price for LNG of $US11.70 per million British thermal units was higher than the spot price in North Asia but 4 per cent down from the March quarter. For the full year, the realised LNG price sank 17 per cent to $US11.80/MMBTU.
To recap, gas cartel founder Origin Energy is now ripping cash out of:
- east coast gas markets by charging Australians more than everybody it exports to;
- power markets because they have no gas and therefore electricity prices are sky high;
- the federal budget via bill subsidies designed to cover up both points, and
- the NSW state budget via Eraring subsidies that are only necessary because there is not enough gas for the energy transition.
But wait, there’s more. Origin also sponsors the Grattan Institute, which has produced so much propaganda on its behalf that the media can’t tell its arse from its elbow.
To wit, the ABC:
When the federal government released its gas strategy in May 2024, it said LNG – liquefied natural gas – would remain a key export market for Australia, with plans to expand the amount of gas Australia sells overseas. That was despite expert advice from the Grattan Institute that Australia will not hit its 2050 net-zero emissions target unless it transitions quickly away from the methane-producing fossil fuel. Author Royce Kurmelovs argues that this decision is just one of a long history of wins for the oil and gas sector, which his new books shows had detailed knowledge of the impact of fossil fuels on the climate, well before the industry got off the ground in Australia.
The Grattan Institute has never argued that LNG exports should be cut. It misrepresented the importance of emissions reduction by cutting Australian households off from gas to distract from doing something about LNG exports!
Origin Energy is an incredible rent-seeker. If it is your provider, you should consider moving based on ethics and price gouging alike.
