The Queensland Government has released a draft of the Queensland Gas Market Review, prepared by the state's Gas Market Advisor, for public consultation.

 

Minister for Energy and Water Supply, Mark McArdle said the draft 2012 review helped identify limits on reserves that could impact on gas supply availability, market development, security of supply and wholesale gas prices. 

 

Mr McArdle said the review had a strong focus on establishing gas reserves allocations and development rates. 

 

Mr McArdle said the role of the Queensland Gas Market Advisor was to look forward and identify problems in the State's emerging LNG industry before they happened. 



The draft review notes balance has not been achieved between large gas demand for export supply and demand for domestic gas supply. 



The review found the lack of access to future gas supply contracting information resulted in the State’s gas reserves remaining in short supply for new domestic supply contracts (before and after 2015), while major industrial customers were unable to resolve future contracting requirements and business plans. 


“This lack of liquidity is contributing to a high level of uncertainty in the market, which is also affected by the uncertainties of domestic and international LNG supplies and future gas prices,” Mr McArdle said. 

 

The Advisor warned that if the domestic supply situation did not improve over the next 12 months, there could be insufficient time to address a domestic supply constraint for 2015–2020.

 

The Advisor also recommended the Queensland Government consider developing a risk management approach for domestic supply and market liquidity in the planning and approval process for development of future new LNG trains. 



The Gas Market Advisor is responsible for facilitating frequent and open dialogue between government and industry, and providing recommendations to government on key gas market issues. 



Consultation on the draft review will close on 13 July 2012. 


The draft 2012 Gas Market Review can be downloaded at http://www.deedi.qld.gov.au/energy/gas-market-rev.htm