I can’t tell if all Aussies hate Donald Trump or if it is just the backward media.
What I can tell you is that your best hope of not being destroyed by the homegrown gas export cartel lies not with your leaders but with King Trump.
As we know, LNG imports will begin in Australia later this year. When they do, they will land at around $25Gj, roughly double today’s local price.
What will then happen is the gas export cartel will restrict local supply further until all gas, imported and local, rises to import parity prices.
By itself, this price shock will double your gas bill and lift your electricity bill by one-third. Or, it will require $8bn of federal government subsidies to prevent it, which will increase your taxes instead.
If the LNP is in power, it has committed to no rebates, so as the previous subsidies unwind, your electricity bill will rise by as much as three-quarters in 2026/27.
This is a CPI shock of 4-5% plus spillovers, so it will also end any monetary easing and could even result in rate hikes despite a collapsing economy.
It will put a full stop on Aussie manufacturing and render the nation completely dependent upon Chinese imports for literally everything.
This fate is sealed as policy currently stands.
But there is one hope that it might not happen: King Trump.
President Donald Trump said he and Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed during a phone call on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT) to begin “negotiations” on ending the Ukraine war and would “work together, very closely” toward winding down the conflict.
“We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together,” Mr Trump said in a social media post disclosing details about a call that followed a prisoner swap between the two nations. “But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine.
Goldman looks at the gas implications.
We raise our 2025 TTF forecast…Year-to-date European gas balances have realized significantly tighter than we expected.
As a result, to properly rebuild storage this summer, it is no longer sufficient for European gas prices to just remain above coal generation costs, as we had previously expected.
We now expect TTF to price at higher levels still to attract sufficient incremental LNG supply to balance the market.
Accordingly, we raise our Sum25 TTF prices to 50EUR/MWh from 40 EUR previously.
…Downside risks to TTF come primarily from a potential Russia-Ukraine peace deal that may result in incremental Russian gas flows to Europe.
More specifically, if Russia flows through Ukraine returned to pre-war levels, we would expect Sum25 TTF 36%-56% below our 50 EUR/MWh base case, below coal-lignite switching levels (and at least 50% of downside to our unchanged 36 EUR/MWh 2026 TTF forecast), depending on whether those flows would be available for the full summer or only from 2H25.
If Russian flows only returned to the limited levels observed in 2023-24, we would expect only marginal downside to our 2025 base case given the recent tightening of European balances, but a 17% downside to our 2026 TTF forecast.
In short, without a Trump-brokered deal on Ukraine that enables a resumption of Russian pipeline flows to Europe, your LNG imports will begin into a global gas shortage large enough to deliver the inflationary disaster above.
I’m sorry to tell you that “Australia” has ceased to exist as a nation in any meaningful sense.
You are not “Australian.” You just live here. And soon, you will pay for it.
