Anyone come across where ID is off to, please let me know and I’ll invest in it. He made me a wad here.
Australia’s gas industry is set to lose one of its strongest advocates with Ian Davies standing down as chief executive at major east coast producer Senex Energy after 14 years.
Mr Davies, who spent a lot of time lobbying politicians in Canberra in recent years, told staff he would hand over to chief operating officer Darren Stevenson “in late 2024”.
Senex chief executive Ian Davies is stepping down after 14 years.
“I am incredibly proud of Senex’s achievements and my role in those as CEO, from building the business as a small oil explorer in the Cooper Basin with one employee to a critical east coast natural gas producer with hundreds of employees, supporting some of Australia’s largest manufacturing customers,” Mr Davies said in a message at lunchtime.
Mr Davies made a name for himself pushing both Senex Energy’s east coast gas interests and the wider gas industry’s, including streamlined environmental regulations, faster approvals and an end to secretive engagement processes that undermine business confidence and likely that of communities too.
The lobbying saw Senex Energy obtain government approvals for a $1 billion expansion of the company’s Atlas and Roma North gas fields in Queensland in June, expected to supply gas into the domestic market from next year.
Mr Davies, 47, has run Senex Energy for South Korean steel giant Posco and Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting for the past two years, and for the decade prior when it was listed on the ASX.
Posco and Hancock paid about $1 billion for Senex Energy, capping its remarkable rise from an energy microcap to an expanding gas market player that supplies about 10 per cent of Australia’s east coast gas market each year and sells gas to Santos’ GLNG export facility, also in Queensland.
“I spent months in Canberra – there’s no one in government around that part of [energy] policy I didn’t get to,” Mr Davies told The Australian Financial Review, in response to what he said was “unprecedented, heavy-handed intervention” in Australia’s gas market that threatened to thwart Senex Energy’s recent $1 billion expansion.
“It took a very long time to turn that ship around.”
He said the Surat Basin expansion would be 75 per cent complete by the end of this year, and it had committed to supply at least half of all production into the domestic market as part of its regulatory approvals.
The outspoken energy boss said it was a “tough space to be” in Australia, with financiers and shareholders threatening to cut off funding and governments trying to crack down on fossil fuels. He said Senex Energy wanted to double production from 60 petajoules to 120, but it was hard to get resources and permits.
“Part of the issue is, when we have these debates, it’s either about coal, renewables or it’s about nuclear,” he said.
“The reality is the market and then the society and economy run on an energy sector, both molecules and electrons.
“And the other reality is demand is going nowhere. So you need fundamentally more energy per unit of output, more energy per capita, more energy in total, than today.”
Mr Stevenson joined Senex Energy in 2012 and previously oversaw its Surat Basin and Cooper Basin operations.
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