Australia Pacific LNG (APLNG) has announced it will supply an additional 61 petajoules (PJ) of natural gas to the Australian domestic market after reaching a new sales agreement with Origin Energy.
Under the terms of the agreements, gas supply to Origin will commence in January 2020 and continue through to the end of 2021. Pricing will be primarily oil-linked and supply will be shaped to meet seasonal domestic demand.
Origin Executive General Manager, Energy Supply and Operations, Greg Jarvis, said that it was a substantial amount of gas which will be available to customers during the high demand winter months.
“We continue to be focused on making sure domestic users can access reasonably priced gas and this agreement with APLNG means that we are able to continue to support our commercial and domestic customers during this period,” Mr Jarvis said.
“As one of the major gas suppliers to Australian households, large gas users and peaking power plants, we continue to look for additional ways to deliver more gas to the domestic market and help bring down gas prices for our customers.”
Estimated petroleum exploration expenditure in Queensland was $92.5 million for the first half of 2019 – an increase of 15 per cent compared to the same period last year.
Queensland already supplies around 25 per of the east coast gas market and has set aside land for gas for domestic buyers and manufacturers.
Since 2015, the Queensland Government has released more than 39,000km2 of land for gas exploration, guaranteeing over a fifth of it will be for Australian consumers.
Blocks from these releases have been awarded to Senex Energy, Central Petroleum, Armour Energy, Chi Oil and Gas, Santos, Shell and APLNG.
Two projects have signed gas deals with local buyers.
Senex’s Project Atlas has contracts with CSR, with O-I glass and with Orora to supply three manufacturing plants in Queensland.
And the APLNG-Armour Energy gas joint venture had signed gas deals with Orica for supply to their Yarwun explosives plant and packaging manufacturer Orora.
Senex and its construction partner in Project Atlas, Jemena, is also building a $140m pipeline and processing facility project that will connect Project Atlas to the Wallumbilla Gas Hub in south-west Queensland.
