Twiggy’s bold gas plan
Floating platform could provide 150 jobs
ANDREW “Twiggy” Forrestbacked Australian Industrial Energy is injecting up to $300 million to build a floating gas import terminal at Port Kembla.
If approved, the new facility will create 150 jobs during the construction phase and help improve gas supply to industrial customers along the east coast of Australia.
AIE is a consortium of Mr Forrest’s Squadron Energy and two giant Japanese companies — Marubeni Corporation, a global energy infrastructure investor and JERA, the world’s largest buyer of LNG gas.
AIE said yesterday it had signed non-binding deals with NSW Ports and industrial gas buyers that would allow it to design the floating regasification plant, which would be able to supply in excess of 100 petajoules per annum — sufficient to meet more than 70 per cent of NSW’s total gas needs.
“Port Kembla offers a great harbour, proximity to existing industry and the key intrastate gas pipeline and I’m pleased that we’re already receiving encouraging support from the local community,” Mr Forrest told News Corp.
“Our customers need us to fully commit the necessary financial resources to the project in the next few months.
“To do this we’ll need to work closely with government to make the approvals process as smooth as possible,” Mr Forrest said.
Energy analyst Bruce Mountain said the proposed gas import terminal was a “laughable” project which will have very little impact on east coast gas prices for residential consumers.
“From a public policy point of view, you’d have to say this is just weird. It may well be profitable for them to import liquefied natural gas to regasify and sell to Australian consumers, but we have the same gas available in a gaseous form in Australia,” he said.
“It may well be meaningful for those gas consumers in the consortium, but for the broader market I would be surprised if it had a major impact on the Australian gas price locally.”
Construction of the gas terminal is predicted to cost between $200 million and $300 million.
It will generate 150 jobs while it is being built along with a further 40-50 ongoing roles once operational.