THE entire coal seam gas industry is still available with a major player confirming talks on consolidation were not limited to the Gladstone LNG project.
"There are discussions up and down the value chain," Australia Pacific LNG project director Todd Creeger said.
APLNG is the joint venture between Origin Energy and ConocoPhillips which has plans for a $35 billion LNG plant in Gladstone which will employ up to 5000 people.
However, even after a series of takeovers and mergers there are still a host of competitors jockeying for position.
"We are trying to figure out where it makes best sense," Mr Creeger said. "We are not limiting it to just Gladstone."
While analysts believe the billions to be invested in Gladstone will be stalled until the oil and gas prices increase and buyers are prepared to make long-term commitments for offtake, Mr Creeger said there were no such fears at APLNG.
"We are out there marketing. People are more cautious than they were a year ago but there is going to be a market for us," he said.
"Long term this (economic climate) is an anomaly. We are taking the long-term view."
Mr Creeger was talking at the opening of APLNG's Taloona gas plant, part of the Spring Gully gas field project outside Roma.
The opening of the plant gives APLNG the capacity to supply about 25 per cent of Queensland's gas needs.
Resources Minister Stephen Robertson said developments like Spring Gully were confirmation that CSG was not a pipedream.
He said the early entrants into CSG were not taken seriously, but the industry had proved itself and was far more realistic than the PNG gas pipeline project.
He said the Gladstone LNG proposal was a case of "so far, so good". "The companies I talk to continue to express confidence that they will sign up customers," he said.
APLNG expects to make a decision on Gladstone late 2010.
AOE Price at posting:
$3.53 Sentiment: None Disclosure: Not Held
