East coast gas producers are ramping up informal talks this week with manufacturers as they hunt for alternative ways of meeting buyers’ concerns about unaffordable gas and try to head off the forced oversupply of the market envisaged under Labor’s gas reservation scheme.
The talks, which include some overseas investors in Australia’s LNG export industry, may consider proposals such as a levy on the gas industry that could be used to subsidise buyers of energy, according to gas industry sources.
Another option is for a levy on producers that could be used to fund pipeline or storage infrastructure that would be called on to help meet demand in the southern states on heavy-usage winter days, they say.
The outside-the-box alternatives are being considered amid extreme concern among gas producers about the impact of the Albanese government’s plan to force a glut in the east coast domestic market by requiring LNG exporters to supply the equivalent of 20 per cent of their exports to local customers.
Gas producers insist such a scheme would cause prices to dive and ruin the domestic market, while LNG investors in Asia worry it will reduce volumes available for export and endanger their long-term energy security.
