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Australia could emerge as shale powerhouse

The Australian energy sector is in the midst of a sea change, with investors retooling their strategies to focus on unconventional gas, industry officials said. Andrew Latham, vice president of exploration for energy consultant group Wood Mackenzie , said Australian exploration is dominated by frontier areas and long-term natural gas projects, two areas where he said the industry is losing interest. "Australia’s established unconventional gas industry is likely to rank highly, when benchmarked against other unconventional plays outside North America," he said Monday at an energy summit in Perth. Australia is a premier exporter of liquefied natural gas from conventional reserves. Several Asian countries have secured long-term natural gas supply contracts from companies operating in Australia. Rob Cole, chairman of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association, said development costs were inhibiting growth within the country’s energy sector. Latham, meanwhile, said parts of the country may hold some of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Coal Sliding as Australian Flood Boost Lost in Drought

The drought across most of Australia ’s Queensland state means coal producers are exporting record volumes into an oversupplied market, depriving them of the usual price gains caused by weather disruptions. Shipments from Queensland, the biggest exporter of coal used in steelmaking, will rise 14 percent to 205 million metric tons in the 12 months ending June 30, the government says. The heavy rains that crimped output and boosted prices in three of the past four years by flooding pits such as Cockatoo Coal Ltd.’s Baralaba mine haven’t come this year. “Waters that we collected during that flood we’re now utilizing” to reduce dust and in the construction of a wall to protect against a 1-in-a-1,000 years flood, said Andrew Lawson, Cockatoo’s managing director. “Water is a risk and an opportunity,” said Lawson, who joined the company a year after flooding in 2010 halted output. Deluges in Queensland in […]

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Australia's LNG exports face competition from U.S.

The United States is emerging as a major competitor to Australia’s gas export market, says a former U.S. Department of Energy official. Speaking at the Australian Domestic Gas conference Wednesday in Sydney, Randa Fahmy Hudome, who was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as the U.S. associate deputy secretary of energy, said the United States viewed Asia as its biggest market and was increasing liquefied natural gas export approvals to fill future demand from that region, The Australian newspaper reports. Hudome now heads up a Washington, D.C.-based government relations and strategic consulting firm she launched in 2003. "In the U.S. we see the demand in Asia as the biggest bite of the apple for us. We intend to compete in that market," she said. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Energy conditionally authorized approved Cameron LNG, LLC to export domestically produced […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Australia’s LNG exports face competition from U.S.

The United States is emerging as a major competitor to Australia’s gas export market, says a former U.S. Department of Energy official. Speaking at the Australian Domestic Gas conference Wednesday in Sydney, Randa Fahmy Hudome, who was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as the U.S. associate deputy secretary of energy, said the United States viewed Asia as its biggest market and was increasing liquefied natural gas export approvals to fill future demand from that region, The Australian newspaper reports. Hudome now heads up a Washington, D.C.-based government relations and strategic consulting firm she launched in 2003. "In the U.S. we see the demand in Asia as the biggest bite of the apple for us. We intend to compete in that market," she said. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Energy conditionally authorized approved Cameron LNG, LLC to export domestically produced […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Shell Sells Australian Refinery, Gas Stations for $2.6 Billion

Royal Dutch Shell PLC has agreed to sell its Australian refinery and gas stations to energy trader Vitol Holding BV for 2.9 billion Australian dollars (US$2.6 billion), as the company offloads assets around the globe to protect falling profits. The sale includes Shell’s Geelong refinery in Victoria state and 870 gas stations and comes just a month after it agreed to sell its minority stake in an Australian natural-gas project for US$1.14 billion. "Australia remains important to Shell, but we are making tough portfolio choices to improve the company’s overall competitiveness," Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden said in a statement Friday. The news follows the disclosure Thursday that Shell has sold its downstream business in Italy to Kuwait Petroleum International. Mr. van Beurden, who took the reins at Shell on Jan. 1, is mapping out a more conservative path for the Anglo-Dutch company after a decade of […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Australian company Icon finds 'significant gas' in Queensland shale

Australian company Icon Energy Ltd. said Friday it encountered significant volumes of natural gas in a shale basin in the state of Queensland. Icon said it completed drilling its Redland-1 well in the region — an operation meant to evaluate the reserve potential in the Toolachee and Daralingie shale formations — and found "significant gas." The region, it said, could be a "world class" shale reserve area. The well is the sixth for the company in the region. It said additional hydraulic fracturing is planned for the area during the third quarter of 2014. Icon said it notified Australian authorities of the recent discovery. Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization said the country has "substantial prospective shale reserves" and that commercialization will require major investments. Porn star Jenna Jameson uses online army and her body to track down former assistant 2-year-old in […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Australian company Icon finds ‘significant gas’ in Queensland shale

Australian company Icon Energy Ltd. said Friday it encountered significant volumes of natural gas in a shale basin in the state of Queensland. Icon said it completed drilling its Redland-1 well in the region — an operation meant to evaluate the reserve potential in the Toolachee and Daralingie shale formations — and found "significant gas." The region, it said, could be a "world class" shale reserve area. The well is the sixth for the company in the region. It said additional hydraulic fracturing is planned for the area during the third quarter of 2014. Icon said it notified Australian authorities of the recent discovery. Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization said the country has "substantial prospective shale reserves" and that commercialization will require major investments. Porn star Jenna Jameson uses online army and her body to track down former assistant 2-year-old in […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Australia on course for a shale boom?

Australia is slated to be the next big energy market for shale, experts say. Boston consultancy Lux Research in a recent report predicted that Australia will experience large-scale hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, sooner than in China, even though China’s shale resources are estimated to be twice that of the United States. "Existing infrastructure, low population density in resource-rich regions and a welcoming government position Australia at the forefront of shale development," Lux analyst Daniel Choi was quoted as saying by The Australian newspaper. China by contrast, is fraught with technical challenges caused by depth and geology, Choi says, in addition to the country’s poor infrastructure and local turf wars. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says Australia has an estimated 437 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable shale gas reserves, ranking the country the sixth highest in the world. The reserves are dispersed throughout the […]

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Australia’s drinking water at risk from extreme weather events

Australia’s drinking water is at risk from extreme weather, a new study says. The study, commissioned by the United States-based Water Research Foundation, says flooding, prolonged rainfall, drought, cyclones and bush fires impact surface water quality. Such weather events, it says, are predicted to become more frequent and intense in many parts of Australia due to climate change. “We need to focus on building resilience into our future supplies,” said Stuart Khan, an associate professor of the school of civil and environmental engineering at the University of New South Wales, and lead author of the report, in a news release. “This means designing systems that are more protected from the impacts of climate change and that have greater flexibility to respond to extreme weather events. This could be partially brought about through a diversification of water sources.” The report comes as Australia broke another […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple
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Australia's drinking water at risk from extreme weather events

Australia’s drinking water is at risk from extreme weather, a new study says. The study, commissioned by the United States-based Water Research Foundation, says flooding, prolonged rainfall, drought, cyclones and bush fires impact surface water quality. Such weather events, it says, are predicted to become more frequent and intense in many parts of Australia due to climate change. “We need to focus on building resilience into our future supplies,” said Stuart Khan, an associate professor of the school of civil and environmental engineering at the University of New South Wales, and lead author of the report, in a news release. “This means designing systems that are more protected from the impacts of climate change and that have greater flexibility to respond to extreme weather events. This could be partially brought about through a diversification of water sources.” The report comes as Australia broke another […]

Posted On : Published By : Tom Whipple