Jemena, owner of the Northern Gas Pipeline, has released its Northern Territory Gas Strategy – which outlines a fast and low-cost way to bring Beetaloo gas to market.
Energy infrastructure company and owner of the Northern Gas Pipeline, Jemena, has formally released its Northern Territory Gas Strategy – a customer-led plan which will utilise existing infrastructure to transport Beetaloo gas to the east coast gas market from as early as 2026.
Currently, up to 90TJ/d of Beetaloo gas can be transported via the Northern Gas Pipeline to the east coast gas market as soon as production commences in the basin. Under stage two of Jemena’s strategy, the Northern Gas Pipeline will be augmented and expanded to increase its capacity by about 45 per cent, meaning the pipeline will be able to transport around 130TJ/d of gas from the Beetaloo Basin – roughly 10 per cent of typical east coast demand.
Commissioned in late 2019, the Northern Gas Pipeline is the only pipeline in the Northern Territory directly connected to Australia’s east coast gas market via Queensland.
Further stages of Jemena’s Northern Territory Gas Strategy will see the company explore works to construct a new ~370km pipeline lateral north from the Territory’s Barkly region to the Beetaloo Basin. Work will also be undertaken to further increase the capacity of the Northern Gas Pipeline in line with market demand.
Jemena’s Managing Director David Gillespie said the company is focussed on truly understanding the needs of the market, particularly upstream producers in the Beetaloo, to ensure the Northern Territory Gas Strategy reflects the reality on the ground.
“We’re listening to our stakeholders to understand how we can best meet their needs and make their projects a success. As a first step, we are conducting a market-led Expression of Interest (EOI) process to engage with producers in the Northern Territory as well as gas consumers to understand future pipeline needs within the Beetaloo Basin or the Northern Territory more broadly,” he said.
“Our strategy focuses on effectively utilising established infrastructure rather than undertaking large-scale new infrastructure builds, which have an estimated capex investment of between $4-6 billion and won’t be complete until the early 2030s at the earliest.
“By gradually augmenting the capacity of the Northern Gas Pipeline, we can match transportation capacity with production volumes, making the Northern Gas Pipeline the most cost-effective way of delivering Beetaloo gas to market.
“This is a win-win for upstream gas producers and consumers as it will enable Beetaloo gas, particularly early-stage Beetaloo gas, to be delivered to market quickly and without the price tag associated with large-scale new infrastructure builds. This gas is crucial for large industrials and Australia’s $100 billion manufacturing sector which simply cannot wait half a decade for new pipeline builds to be completed.”
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