We need gas. Doesn't matter how

When it comes to gaslighting HQ, look no further than today’s rubbish.

A comparison by the $384 million Amplitude using publicly available data seeks to dispel some of the myths of the “manufacturing versus big gas” rhetoric, and make the case why forcing producers to cross-subsidise the manufacturing industry is not a solution to the East Coast supply problem.

Amplitude points out returns on invested capital in the 2025 financial year of 10.8 per cent for Orica, the world’s biggest commercial explosives maker with a market value of about $11 billion.

Orica’s competitor Dyno Nobel – formerly known as Incitec Pivot before it focused solely on global explosives – enjoyed returns of 8.9 per cent, while the figure for steelmaker BlueScope was 4.8 per cent, according to the data.

That compares with Amplitude’s 0.3 per cent.

First, the journo confesses that her article is an industry press release.

Second, both Orica and Dyno Global manufacture ammonium nitrate near mining customers worldwide because, you know, it blows up. Comparing either group with a tiny local gas producer is stupid.

That’s within the press release’s reference framework. Outside of it, there is no argument at all.

Who cares about the respective sizes of the companies? What matters is that Australia has cheap gas. Clearly, Beach and Amplitude can’t provide it, so go die in a hole.

There hasn’t been an Australian gas market for ten years. It failed long ago. Policy redress is required at this point to ensure the sustainable return of cheap gas to Australia. There is no other consideration. Nationalisation is a perfectly reasonable option in this context.

Labor’s 20% reservation will deliver the cheap gas over time. The LNP supply push won’t (as Peter Dutton knew). And ON’s Gina grovel will do the opposite.

Remember, even at its peak after 2035, we are talking about keeping just 20% of our gas to support industrial renewal, cheap power, and critical national inputs like fertilisers, explosives and plastics independently.

The other 80% will mostly go to our enemy in China.

Most of these gas arguments are just dressed-up treason.

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.

We need gas. Doesn’t matter how