WA Govt Gas Policy Report Today, page-294

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Mr Cook said a government-employed gas market expert and an external consultant had been employed to engage with “all the onshore gas producers” and complete a “commercial analysis” on their projects to inform a decision on any potential exemptions to the existing ban. “There’s one school of thought that’s been put to the Government that says that (onshore producers) need to be able to benefit from the higher prices that they get from export in the early stages to be able to make investment decisions to bring those reserves on stream,” he said.

“There’s another school of thought that says that’s rubbish and that they don’t need those sorts of incentives, that there’s plenty of domestic gas customers that are prepared to pay a decent price – and, if necessary, a premium – in order to make that gas more commercial.“ And that’s the work that we’re doing at the moment, is to understand the commerciality and the economics of that.” Quizzed about his stance on exporting onshore gas at the Australian Energy Producers conference later the same day, Mr Cook said claims access to overseas customers was required to underwrite new projects was a “reasonable proposition” on “face value”. “What I wanted to communicate today is that we are going to test that proposition very carefully,” he said. “This isn’t a lay down misère, this isn’t a foregone conclusion. “We want to have a serious conversation with producers and customers in our domestic gas industry to make sure we understand all those dimensions before we make a decision.” In 2020, the WA Government provided an exemption to the Waitsia onshore project allowing it to send half its gas to Woodside’s Karratha Gas Plant for export until 2028.

Beach Energy and Mitsui – the joint owners of Waitsia – are now in the process of building their own gas processing facility near Dongara. Mr Cook said there was opportunity for that 250-terajoule-a-day plant to be utilised by other companies with fields in the Perth Basin, which include Mineral Resources and Warrego Energy, which is owned by Gina Rinehart’s Hancock Prospecting. “I think there will be a push within the industry to understand where they can build economies of scale, particularly around the Perth Basin, and where they can share resources,” he said. “And so from that perspective, I think there’s a way to go as they as they start to understand better the potential of those reserves.”Steven Dawson – a senior bureaucrat at Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation – told estimates there were no regulatory barries to third-parties processing their gas at the Waitsia plant. “Certainly that was part of the consideration that Government undertook in considering the export allowance that was given to the Waitsia project, that that would actually allow us to now provide a large enough facility that would then ultimately be able to provide that third-party access to smaller projects,” he said. “Getting a project up and running when you’ve already got access to third-party infrastructure to process that gas and get into the pipeline, that certainly becomes a much easier proposition from an investment perspective than building a greenfield plant yourself.” Beach Energy is 30 per cent owned by Seven Group, which also owns The West Australian.

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