ACCC cites ‘imminent threat’ to manufacturers

forced Coogee Chemicals to close down its Laverton plant in 2016, Mr Sims told the Australian Domestic Gas Outlook conference in Sydney.

“Many other manufacturers are close to making critical decisions on their future operations,” he said.

“If wholesale gas prices do not soften from their current levels, it is just a matter of time before they follow RemaPak and Coogee. Once large manufacturers relocate or shut down their plants, they will not come back.”

He said gas suppliers would be “well advised to consider what they can do to provide immediate price relief to the manufacturing sector”.

He called it “puzzling” that producers weren’t investing more in new gas development, given the significant untapped reserves in the Surat and Bowen basins in Queensland and northern NSW.

Mr Sims said that when the LNG export projects in Queensland were commissioned a few years ago, “they promised that this current crisis would not happen”.

Suppliers assured the Queensland Government there would be investment in gas exploration and that businesses would be protected.

“And yet today we are dealing with these very issues,” he said.

The LNG export projects by ConocoPhillips and Origin Energy, Royal Dutch Shell and Santos on Curtis Island, near Gladstone, began production in late 2015 and 2016.

The issue came to a head in