Looks like folks are going to have to get used to Australian beer and women.
And the underlying geology of the region.
Posted on 09/20/2024 5:16:57 AM PDT by Red Badger
The head of a company developing gas in a vast 28,000km-wide Northern Territory basin south of Darwin says the site can provide the type of energy revolution Australia needs as a power crisis continues to plague the territory.
The head of a company developing gas in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin says the “huge” resource has the potential to transform the Australian energy market, lowering gas prices and reducing emissions.
Empire Energy managing director Alex Underwood told Sky News his company expected to produce the first gas from the Beetaloo by mid-2025.
“Just in the next five or six weeks we’ll be drilling our first full-scale pilot development well and then all things going well, we’ll be installing the gas processing plant just after the wet season and commencing production from the Beetaloo from the middle of next year,” he said.
The Beetaloo Basin is an onshore gas field about 500 kilometres south of Darwin that covers an area of about 28,000 square kilometres – almost the size of Belgium.
“This is a huge resource, I think the Beetaloo contains around enough gas to supply Australia for the next 400 years,” Mr Underwood said.
The first gas from the Beetaloo will be sold to the Northern Territory government to feed its domestic energy supply.
The NT electricity system has been plunged into crisis after gas from the Blacktip offshore field of the NT coast dried up.
Solar farms built to supply the grid have been unable to provide power due to issues with the intermittent nature of the energy being produced.
Mr Underwood said Empire’s longer-term plans including piping gas to the east coast to help meet shortages, and to export gas from Darwin.
He said the Beetaloo Basin had the potential to replicate the energy revolution that had occurred in the US following the hydraulic fracturing of gas from the Marcellus Shale in the country’s northeast.
“They’ve got the cheapest gas in the world, but also they’ve started displacing coal production with gas, not due to government mandate but due to lower prices,” Mr Underwood said.
“Their emissions are dropping as a result of it. The Beetaloo not only has the scale but also the geological characteristics to replicate that incredible boom in the US.”
There is, however, strong opposition to fracking from environmentalists.
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek this week ordered a review by a panel of independent scientists into the impact of fracking in the Beetaloo Basin on water resources.
The review had been pushed by local Labor MP Marion Scrymgour.
“One of the things that I’ve had during all my conversations with not just native title holders but people who are going to be affected in the regions by this operation is that people haven’t understood the information, but particularly water, everyone is united about ‘we are concerned about water’,” Ms Scrymgour told Sky News this week.
“I think it (the review) will be done before the end of the year so we’re not going to drag this on, we want to give certainty to the industry as well, so we need to just work together so we can get the science right in relations to this project.”
Mr Underwood said he was confident the review would not impact Empire’s operations.
“In our pilot phase we clearly do not have a significant impact on the aquifer,” he said.
“The Pepper Inquiry and the former NT Government put a lot of effort into ensuring that water usage is sustainable and so we expect that review will find what we already know which is that we’re not going to have a significant impact.”
Drill it out and burn it before it leaks into the Air ,LOL
Remember in the Jimmy Carter days we were almost out of Oil and Gas . They found out then they could lie like crazy
From BRAVE AI:
China’s Natural Gas Imports
Yes, China imports natural gas. According to the search results, China has been increasing its natural gas imports to meet its growing energy demand. In 2021, China’s total natural gas imports rose 20% year-on-year, with pipeline gas imports rising more than 22% and LNG imports growing more than 18% year-on-year. China has become the largest natural gas importer in the world, surpassing Japan in 2021.
China sources its natural gas imports primarily from Russia, Kazakhstan, and other countries. In 2021, China imported 898,182 metric tons of pipeline gas from Russia in December alone, a 24.3% year-on-year increase. Additionally, China has agreements with CNPC to increase natural gas imports from Russia via the Power of Siberia pipeline to 43 million cubic meters per day by the end of 2021.
Despite increasing domestic production, China’s reliance on gas imports continues to grow, making it the world’s largest importer of natural gas. This trend is expected to continue as China’s energy demand remains strong.
They always knew they could, they just got more bolder with them....................
I remember that...
20 years and we were going to be out of energy.
I remember Jimmy Carter literature. “We have 200 years of coal left!”
That “200 years” lasted until Clinton.
every week or so, I read a story about researchers finding enough oil, gas or lithium to provide energy for the next eleventy-gabillion years but the Saudi Arabians still drive solid gold race cars and gas is about $4/ gallon
++++++++++
28000 km = 17400 miles
The earth is 25000 miles in circumference
There is either a decimal point error in the 28K number or this basin is the size of 75% of the earth.
My bad. Further down in article the units are changed to 28,000 km²
Probably square kilometers.
Did they check to see if it’s sacred Aboriginal land?
“...28,000 square kilometres – almost the size of Belgium....”
They get a cut..............
Maybe Midnight Oil will do a song about it.
Stop endangering the roos and Go Green!
Looks like folks are going to have to get used to Australian beer and women.
And the underlying geology of the region.
There is indeed a giant LNG terminal being built.
At $70/bbl today, the price of oil is actually pretty low compared to historical prices, due to the devaluation of the dollar.
There is plenty of oil to be used. It’s just expensive to get it.
What is happening is cheap oil is running low.
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