First of Gladstone's LNG plants launched

By Terry Ryder, 1st June 2011

After years of planning and much publicity, the CSG-to-LNG industry has started construction in Queensland.

The first of four big projects has officially launched work in Gladstone, with Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Queensland Premier Anna Bligh officiating.

The $16 billion project by Santos will extract coal seal gas from the Surat Basin and the Bowen Basin and process it in the new plant on Curtis Island off Gladstone.

Santos chief executive David Knox said the official launch marked “an historic milestone” for the Gladstone Liquefied Natural Gas (GLNG) project, which is being developed in conjunction with Malaysia's Petronas, French multinational Total and South Korea's KOGAS.

"Curtis Island is the engine room for the whole project,” Knox said. “This is where coal seam gas from Queensland's world-class fields will be converted to LNG and exported to Asia.

"The growing demand for natural gas in Asia is driven by the region's need for cleaner, secure, safe and reliable energy and that's what GLNG will provide."

First exports are scheduled for 2015 with estimates that GLNG will supply about 11% of Korea's domestic gas needs and 9% of Malaysia's gas.

Premier Anna Bligh said Queensland is on the verge of a new gas age.

That noise in the background is the clamour from farmers and other landowners, as well as environmentalists, with protests growing in Queensland and NSW.

Opponents are concerned about chemicals, groundwater contamination and the degradation of farmland. Many farmers have joined a Lock the Gate campaign to keep gas companies off agricultural land. Some want CSG expansion stopped until the environmental and health effects are understood.

Bligh’s focus at the official launch was on the jobs and economic growth the project will deliver. "Over the next 25 years, the project will contribute over $6 billion to state revenue, generate $9 billion a year in exports and see the creation of 6,000 jobs,” she said.

Multiply that by four, as this is just the first in a series of such projects to get physically under way. The four combined entail investment totaling about $80 billion.

But Bligh did emphasise the hundreds of environmental conditions imposed on the gas plant in Gladstone, the gas wells in the Surat Basin and the associated pipelines connecting the two places. She said they were “the most rigorous ever in the history of our country".                    

Gillard also backed the project. "When I was recently overseas in Japan, in South Korea and in China, all of the talk was of Australia's ability to supply the energy sources of the future and particularly in South Korea," she said. "This is part of Australia and the world moving to cleaner energy sources. LNG is a cleaner energy source and as we transition our economy from being a high emissions economy to a clean energy economy, LNG will be an important part of our future."

ENDS

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