The patchwork of regulators for gas—ACCC, AEMO, AER, state and federal departments—has no single oversight of the destruction wrought by the East Coast gas cartel.
For instance, I have been calling for years for increased southern gas storage to hedge peak winter consumption.
Domestically reserved and regulated priced QLD gas should be shipped south in much greater volumes in the off-season to fill it.
Some expansion is underway, if not nearly enough, but check this out.
A natural gas storage venture backed by Origin Energy has boosted the size of its proposed plant off Victoria’s coast by 50 per cent amid keen appetite from customers increasingly worried about the availability of gas during peak-demand winter days.
Stop right there. This undertaking is already pointless. Why? Origin Energy is a member of the East Coast gas export cartel.
Hence, any increased storage dominated by Origin does nothing, zero, nada to fix the underlying problem of the failed gas market.
It is that the gas export cartel controls 90% of supply.
The same has happened with a multitude of other suggested solutions, including LNG imports.
The cartel seeks to dominate all forms of competition, and it can because there is nobody to stop it.
Origin has previously taken a 100% stake in the Viva LNG import plant before collapsing it by pulling out.
It played a key role in hindering the development of hydrogen as a gas alternative.
It has gamed NSW to its knees via the Eraring coal plant.
It feeds the media gas cartel propaganda constantly via its sponsorship of the Grattan Institute.
It is a vertically integrated monster that marauds across the East Coast failed energy market doing whatever it likes to rort the country to death.
This is the real and only problem with the Australian energy prices and the energy transition.
Some kind of regulatory entity is needed to impose severe restrictions upon the cartel.
It used to be called the prime minister, but all the candidates there are captured as well.
