Australian LNG—the course ahead

Abstract

Despite Australia’s world class natural gas resources, we operate only two liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities: the Woodside-operated North West Shelf Venture in Western Australia and ConocoPhillips’ LNG facility in Darwin. Australia is clearly falling behind our competitors in the global LNG business. With hundreds of billions of dollars worth of LNG projects in the pipeline, however, we have an opportunity to become one of the world’s largest producers. It is an opportunity that we can’t afford to lose. These projects will not only deliver extraordinary economic benefits to Australia, they will play a major role in reducing greenhouse gas emissions for our international customers. Australia’s LNG industry is a key part of the global solution to climate change. LNG is a unique source of energy—it is more emission-efficient than all other fossil fuels and is able to contribute directly to the global reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. For every tonne of carbon dioxide emitted in the production of LNG in Australia, at least four tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions are avoided in our international customers, wherever LNG is used to displace coal-fired power generation. This is even greater in China where the impact of displacing coal with LNG for power generation ranges between 5.5–9.5 tonnes. Industry and government need to work together to encourage a greater development of LNG projects in Australia, especially in these difficult economic times. LNG provides an important opportunity to deliver both industry investment and environmental gain, generating thousands of jobs and helping decrease global greenhouse emissions.