The Government has warned Australia could face shortages of gas over winter as the Resources Minister says she\u2019s considering using the gas trigger to keep gas on home soil.<\/p>\n
Madeleine King has given notice she could exercise powers to force gas giants which typically prioritise international exports, to divert a larger share of their supply to the domestic market.<\/p>\n
It marks the latest escalation of the government\u2019s response to implications from the US-Iran energy war and came hours after Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave a national address on the crisis.<\/p>\n
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By continuing you agree to our Terms<\/a> and Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Ms King said in a statement on Thursday that there could be a deficit of 12 petajoules for the third quarter, and warned 10 petajoules of that shortage could occur as early as July.<\/p>\n The projection, based on the recently released ACCC Gas report, has prompted her to open a consultation period with gas giants across the next month .<\/p>\n She will request information over their supply before formally deciding to use the Australian Domestic Gas Security Mechanism.<\/p>\n \u201cAs we head into the winter months, the Government is taking action to be prepared to face challenges,\u201d Minister King said.<\/p>\n \u201cMy decision to issue a notice of intent is a precautionary measure that gives me the flexibility to intervene if Australia is at risk of facing an energy shortfall.<\/p>\n \u201cThe notice does not place any limits on gas exports. Currently, Australia\u2019s domestic market is well supplied with Australian gas.<\/p>\n \u201cThe notice of intent ensures Australians will be a priority for energy supplies during the period of disruption caused by the conflict in the Middle East.\u201d<\/p>\n The Government has reformed the trigger in 2022 after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, so it could be rolled out more swiftly if needed.<\/p>\n While the ACCC report projects the east coast gas market will experience a supply gap, both Western Australia and the Northern Territory are expected to maintain sufficient levels.<\/p>\n WA has a Domestic Gas Reservation Policy which requires major offshore gas exporters to reserve 15 per cent of their production specifically for local use.<\/p>\n It comes as Mr Albanese is expected to fly into Singapore, and possibly Malaysia, after the Easter break to shore up fuel supply agreements from Australia\u2019s oil exporting neighbours.<\/p>\n Singapore\u2019s Energy Minister Tan See Leng was also in Canberra on Wednesday after the two nations signed an agreement to continue their exchange of refined fuels and LNG.<\/p>\n Foreign Minister Penny Wong also met with Dr Tan and said several ministers across portfolios were engaging with international partners to try to shield industries from the implications.<\/p>\n \u201cDr Tan and I discussed the critical importance of keeping trade flows open and supporting continued movement of essential supplies like LNG and diesel,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe also discussed practical steps to strengthen energy supply resilience in our region, including better coordination and information sharing to respond to any disruptions.<\/p>\n \u201cAustralia and Singapore want to strengthen our collective energy resilience and accelerate work on arrangements that support the trade of essential supplies.\u201d<\/p>\n Singapore is considered a critical fuel partner for Australia, acting as a major supplier of refined petrol, diesel, and jet fuel, with over 80 per cent of this country\u2019s supplies imported from Asian refiners.<\/p>\n Government sources have confirmed the Prime Minister is intending to head to south-east Asia at some point after the Easter long-weekend, but insist final plans are not yet \u201clocked in\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Government has warned Australia could face shortages of gas over winter as the Resources Minister says she\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,99,2572,12241,44,84,1720],"class_list":["post-579600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-energy","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}