shell to tap into lng market - cooper basin

Good new from Shell. I think our guessing is right..."someone" is watching at Cooper Basin.

Shell to tap into LNG market

PUBLISHED: 1 hour 47 MINUTES AGO | UPDATE: 1 hour 47 MINUTES AGO PUBLISHED: 28 Mar 2012 PRINT EDITION: 28 Mar 2012

Angela Macdonald-Smith

Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell is set to unveil a push to introduce liquefied natural gas as a transport fuel in Australia, tapping into expected new gas discoveries onshore and providing a potential market for small-scale LNG plants.

News of the plan, to be announced today by Shell Australia chairwoman Ann Pickard at The Australian Financial Review’s National Energy Conference in Brisbane, comes as the group scours Australia’s emerging shale gas sector for potential investments.

Shell is widely expected to follow fellow oil internationals BG Group and ConocoPhillips into shale gas exploration in Australia, where it is already among the largest investors in conventional and coal seam gas.

Shell expected to invest more than $30 billion in Australia in the next four or five years, Ms Pickard said.

She hinted that Shell was considering local investments in shale gas, in which it is already a major player in North America.

“We just follow good business around the world; we are always looking at opportunities,” she said of possible interest in the Cooper Basin shale sector.

Shell will shortly launch the LNG transport fuel initiative in North America, where new industries are springing up now that gas prices are at 10-year lows.

“Certainly we’re going to be looking pretty hard at Australia to see if that change in technology makes sense here too,” she said.

Ms Pickard said she was confident, meanwhile, that Shell’s planned $20?billion coal seam gas-based LNG project with PetroChina in Queensland was on track for a final go-ahead in late 2013.

She rejected suggestions the Arrow Energy venture might be derailed by toughening conditions for coal seam gas project approvals. Arrow would otherwise not have spent $535 million buying coal seam gas explorer Bow Energy, she said.