<
https://reneweconomy.com.au/australian-gas-industry-is-the-biggest-user-of-australian-gas-says-new-report/>
"Australia’s gas industry uses more of its own gas than any other sector of the
economy, in a self-reinforcing demand cycle, according to a new report.
Climate finance group Market Forces sought to examine industry claims that gas
was critical to Australian manufacturing using data from the Department of
Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Waters (DCCEEW).
The report,
Australia’s Gas Guzzlers, found the gas industry alone burns more
gas just to operate LNG export terminals than the entire Australian
manufacturing sector.
When counting gas demand exports, processing and power generation together, it
found the gas industry used 13 times more gas than all other domestic
manufacturing.
Outside the gas industry itself, the biggest use for Australian gas was in the
production of aluminium and ammonia. Ammonia is commonly used to make
fertilisers, explosives, cleaning agents and chemical precursors.
As part of the analysis, the authors compiled a list of the 30 biggest
industrial users of Australian gas in the 2024-2025 financial year based on
publicly available data and disclosures.
Broken down across the states and territories, six of the biggest ten gas users
were in Western Australia, which represent more than four-fifths of the state’s
manufacturing gas use. Across Australia, five ASX-listed entities – Rio Tinto,
South32, Orica, Dyno Nobel and Wesfarmers – operated six of the ten biggest
gas-using facilities.
“We think continuing to rely on gas as feedstock and a fuel for those
facilities is going to be a long-term financial risk to their viability,” the
report said.
These dynamics suggest a new, more immediate dimension to the phenomenon of
“gas eating gas” – a phrase coined by IEEFA analyst Kevin Morrison to describe
what was happening in Australia as gas exports drove up domestic gas prices,
which in turn crushed demand by pushing users away from the fuel and toward
alternatives like renewables.
Kyle Robertson, head of research at Market Forces, said that four-fifths of
Australian gas is consumed by the gas industry itself in an “ouroboros” that is
then used to justify continued gas development."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
