CSGguyI enjoy your posts both here and on the 'Energy' thread....

CSGguy

I enjoy your posts both here and on the 'Energy' thread.

In regard to Casino in the NR the situation (& a solution) appears to me to be this:

Using the example - which few people in our so-called information rich society seem to understand - of you will never know if anything (gas) is there until (& unless) you drill for it similarly the gas industry needs to show in NSW - to both levels of govt and the community - that csg is not a threat to anything and brings in new jobs.

Casino NSW is the perfect paradigm:

The town (10,000) and Council have supported gas extraction for nearly 10 years.

The town (& region) has very high unemployment and is dependent for jobs on the Dairy (employs 80) - where MEL has a GSA - and the potential for another with the Meatworks (employs 1200).

Both suffer under the burden of high uneconomic energy prices.

Compressed natural gas (CNG) could be supplied to many smaller enterprises like the RSL (perhaps the third largest employer) and Macdonalds etc to replace expensive LPG, diesel and electricity.

There are others like forestry, lumber etc.

So it would seem to me to be a simple imperative (everything else is secondary) that MEL has a pipeline to supply gas to the Dairy and the Meatworks ASAP. They should pump it up on TV news with BoF opening gas supply with a shiny pair of scissors.

The factors working against this are:

Present NSW govt policy and indecision

It would cost over a $1m to build the pipeline. Who pays for it?

What would the revenue (cash flow) be.

As the Meatworks is a seasonal business is it committed?

Is it all cash flow negative and going to burn up our cash?

I don't understand the production license stuff but the remaining Harrier and Corella production wells are too far away to supply these enterprises and Kingfisher has been de-commissioned.

To invest millions of $ in (perhaps?) 3 new wells & a pipeline to supply this small market is greater than MEL's ability to finance it; and all this in an environment of political uncertainty where AGL have now written off $345m.

The facts are international (& domestic) capital is on strike right now in regard to NSW.

(& elsewhere: if you check out other interstate gas companies the story is the same and they are in limited production (WCL etc)).

I have the SH-one-Ts like everybody else. I am angry. I think the Board is hopeless, flat footed and politically stupid but this on its own is not enough & will not do. Indignation belongs to the 'hairies' not us.

But we do have to get a new savvy Board. The last appointment was the last straw for me. Mr Heath is up for re-election in November. Sorry mate: TD

We have to find a way through all this.

On the bottom, in the stinking mud, feeding dark fish lurk

hs