Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development - Home page

Western Australia is not involved in this Committee, WHY?
Independent Expert Scientific Committee on Coal Seam Gas and Large Coal Mining Development - Home page:
Federal and state government commitments

The Australian Government and Queensland, New South Wales, South Australian and Victorian governments have all agreed to strengthen the regulation of coal seam gas and large coal mining development by ensuring that future decisions are informed by substantially improved science and independent expert advice.

Under a National Partnership Agreement, Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia and Victoria have committed to:

seek the committee's advice at appropriate stages of the approvals process for a coal seam gas or large coal mining development that is likely to have a significant impact on water resources
ensure that decision-makers take account of the committee's advice in a transparent manner
provide input into the committee's research agenda, including in relation to the committee's advice on priority areas for bioregional assessment.

National Partnership Agreement

Under the National Partnership Agreement state governments are producing protocols that identify the criteria for projects on which they will seek the committee's advice.

5 comments:

  1. The election is here and suddenly we are bombarded with rosy pictures of WA and Woodside and the future of the gas plant at JPP.All of this contrasts sharply with the stories we were getting in December and January.

    Woodside have farmed in to the 2 Myanmar blocks,won a nearly $3 billion slice of Leviathan,are seriously "looking around" at opportunities in PNG,Canada,and who knows where.
    They have operations in the Canarys and the G of M.,and are more optomistic on Sunrise.
    They have restored their exploration program,back to over $600 million.

    That is a sh*tload of money for a small company.

    But they haven't sold any more gas from Browse at JPP,and haven't committed any more money.

    Shell have lots going on but JPP is not on their "Top 10" list,and are still focused on FLNG.

    So lots of whoopee but not much on JPP - except some more hot air.

    But the rose coloured glasses have not stopped the world from turning.

    Major players with mega projects are rapidly advancing their plans while Woodside twiddles its thumbs over JPP.

    Japan,China and Korea are all over the globe signing up deals that are putting Australia well and truly under the pump,and in the next 2 - 3 years a lot of the projects now being built will be supplying the Asian market.

    Compared to the activity going on elsewhere,Coleman is sound asleep as far as Browse at JPP is concerned.

    So what will Coleman say to Pickard to make her change her mind and dip into Shells pockets for about $15 billion for their share of the 12Mtpa a gas plant at JPP would produce? $15 billion for 4 Mtpa would make it one of the most expensive on the planet,right up there with Pluto.

    Shell,it seems,cant afford it.
    Can Woodside afford another Pluto?

    It would be fair to say Colemans only hope is that his team have somehow completely re worked the JPP plan to a point where it is now a completely irresistable financial bonanza,so tasty as to put even Pickards head in a spin,get all the JV partners laughing so much they put all their other plans on hold and dump all their cash into Browse at JPP.

    Otherwise it will be delayed by another 12 months,which will put it in a very dangerous place up against other world projects,even if the Australian costs come down in that time.

    Or if it is still a too costly,too risky plan then the death blow would be dealt at the FID.

    All the talk of Canning Basin fracking saving it can be ignored for now,that is all years away as far as any major decisions are concerned.

    And Conocos finds in the Browse Basin have to be proved up.Inpex have spare capacity in their pipeline,and Conoco has a plant in Darwin.Their drilling program will go on for a while yet.

    Time is ticking away.Only about 16 weeks left to go for the FID.

    What will Burke say?

    What will the courts say?

    The community says NO!
    In fact their campaign against the JPP plan could now be described as spectacular,and there is a real sense it has a lot more in it yet,no doubt about that!

    Can Woodside come up with any big enough surprises to really upset all this?
    Where will these surprises come from?

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  2. Which means it must be time for a quick "very unintelligent report".

    ...

    Japan is being swooped on from all sides.
    If you look at a map of Japan you will see it is within a pipelines distance from Russia.China shares a border with Russia at this point,and so does Korea.
    The Sakhalin fields are just to Japans north.To the east is the port of Vladivostok,all connected by a new gas pipeline.

    Further north and east is Alaska and Canada.
    To the south and east the Panama Canal and the Gulf of Mexico

    West of Japan are Australia,PNG,Myanmar,Indonesia.
    Further west Quatar,Iran and East Africa.

    And they all want to do business with Japan.

    ...

    At a recent meeting with the Commission for Strategic Development of the Fuel and Energy Sector and Environment Security, President Vladimir Putin said, "The forecasts all predict that global demand for gas will grow over the coming years, above all in Asia. The liquefied natural gas market is set to become more and more important. Building modern LNG facilities takes five to seven years, sometimes even up to ten years. We have to put all the right conditions in place for developing this sector."

    The current prices paid for gas in Asia are about 600 dollars for 1000 cubic metres, while the Europeans pay only 400 dollars for the same amount of gas. Naturally, Russia will be more interested in Asian customers in the long run. Russia's main Asian gas pipeline projects are the Altai gas pipeline and the Sakhalin-Khabarovsk-Vladivostok gas pipeline which shall link Gazprom with China and India. Thus, the Russian gas market is witnessing a transformation. The ties with Asia are strengthened, according to greater attractiveness and profitability.

    Gazprom has started to develop huge deposits in Eastern Siberia and the Russian Far East, which cover almost 60 percent of the Russian Federation. According to information on the Gazprom website, "the initial aggregate gas resources of Eastern Russia account for 52.4 trillion cubic metres onshore and 14.9 trillion cubic metres offshore."

    ...

    February 22, 2013
    The Gazprom Management Committee approved the Investment Rationale for LNG plant near Vladivostok. The Investment Rationale will lay the foundation for generating the project documentation.

    In this way, the Vladivostok-LNG project entered the investment stage.

    As part of the Vladivostok-LNG project a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant will be constructed on the Lomonosov Peninsula (Perevoznaya Bay). The plant will have three process trains with an annual capacity of 5 million tons of LNG each. The first train will be put onstream in 2018. The plant will receive gas from the Sakhalin, Yakutia and Irkutsk gas production centers. The target sales markets are the countries of the Asia-Pacific region.

    The new gas production centers in Sakhalin and Kamchatka are ready to operate, the Yakutia gas production center is being rapidly developed and the Irkutsk and Krasnoyarsk centers are next in turn in Eastern Russia.

    ...

    OAO Rosneft Pres. and Chairman Igor Sechin met with oil company executives in China and Japan to discuss establishing partnerships in Russian offshore Arctic projects and possibly future LNG projects.

    On Feb. 20, Sechin met with Marubeni Corp. and Itochu Corp., both Japanese trading companies. He also met with Inpex Corp., a Japanese international oil and gas company involved in 71 projects in 27 countries, and Japan Petroleum Exploration Co. Ltd. (Japex), involved in projects in Japan and abroad.

    Japex, Itochu, Marubeni, and Inpex are among numerous Japanese companies holding interest in Sakhalin Oil Development Co. Ltd., which represents Japan in the Sakhalin 1 consortium.



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  3. "very unintelligent report" cont...

    Rosneft seeks Asian partners for Arctic projects

    In China, Sechin met with executives of China National Petroleum Corp., China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Sinopec), and CNOOC Ltd. to discuss developing Russia's Arctic shelf.

    Russia is estimated to hold more than half of the total Arctic resources, Ernst & Young said in a recent report entitled “Arctic Oil and Gas” (OGJ Online Feb. 12, 2012).

    Sechin also discussed LNG export possibilities during his Asia trip. Currently, Gazprom is the only company that can export Russian gas, but the Russian Ministry of Energy reportedly might halt that monopoly to help Russian companies expand into new markets.

    Earlier this month, ExxonMobil Corp. and Rosneft agreed to expand a 2011 strategic cooperation agreement to include more Russian Arctic exploratory acreage, possible Rosneft participation in ExxonMobil’s Point Thomson gas-condensate field in Alaska, and a potential Russian Arctic LNG project (OGJ Online, Feb. 13, 2012).

    In another partnership, Rosneft signed contracts advancing its strategic cooperation agreement with Norway’s Statoil to cover projects in Russia (OGJ Online, June 22, 2012).

    Eni SPA of Italy and Rosneft last year signed a strategic cooperation agreement covering exploration of licenses in the Barents and Black Seas offshore Russia (OGJ Online, Apr. 25, 2012).

    ...

    Senator Lisa Murkowski on Friday met with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (AH-bey) and other top Japanese officials to discuss opportunities to send Alaskan natural gas to his country to meet Japan’s growing energy needs.

    Alaska has 35 trillion cubic feet of proven conventional gas reserves on the North Slope, and the potential for 200 trillion cubic feet more both onshore and offshore of Alaska’s northern coast. Meanwhile natural gas production from shale developments alone in the Lower 48 is predicted to double to 16.7 trillion cubic feet – for a total projected supply of 33.1 trillion cubic feet – by 2040, according to federal estimates. Given the current economic situation, and the abundance of natural gas in Alaska and from Lower 48 shale plays, Murkowski said it only makes sense for the United States to help its friends.

    “Japan is one of our strongest and closest allies and we should take every reasonable step to ensure their energy security,” Murkowski said. “We stand to benefit from LNG exports as well by improving our trade imbalance with Asia – this is a win-win, both for Japan and the United States.”

    ...

    Eni makes new discovery for Mozambique LNG and current feed-gas rises to 140 Tcf

    Monday, 25 February 2013


    Italian energy company Eni made a new natural gas discovery within the Mamba Complex in its Area 4 licence offshore Mozambique, confirming 75 trillion cubic feet of gas in place for its joint LNG project with Anadarko Petroleum of the US and the partners of both companies.

    ...


    On track for 4 out of the 6 trains at Sabine Pass.


    THIS WEEK: Cheniere breaks down US LNG economics with $2.5Bln cash flow

    Tuesday, 26 February 2013


    The Sabine Pass liquefaction plant in Louisiana will eventually generate cash flow of more than $2.5 billion per annum when it becomes the first new-wave US LNG exporter in 2015, developer Cheniere Energy told a banking conference in a break-down of the project economics.

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  4. "very unintelligent report" cont...

    Joe Oliver, Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources, announced the approval of a long-term export licence to LNG Canada Development Inc. to export liquefied natural gas from the terminal proposed by the Shell consortium in Kitimat.

    LNG Canada is a joint venture comprising Shell, Korea Gas Corp., Mitsubishi Corp. and PetroChina International.

    The LNG Canada licence is the third long-term licence issued since 2011. This 25-year licence allows for up to 24 million tonnes of LNG to be exported per year, making it the largest licence awarded to date. If this project and the four other proposed LNG projects for B.C. go forward, they could generate more than $1 trillion in economic activity over the next 30 years.

    ...

    MADRID/LONDON, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Repsol has sold a set of liquefied natural gas (LNG) assets to Royal Dutch/Shell for $4.4 billion cash extending the Anglo-Dutch group's dominant position in LNG.

    The sale, announced by the two companies on Tuesday, includes LNG assets in Trinidad and Tobago, Peru and the Bay of Biscay

    Shell is already the top LNG producer among the world's biggest oil companies.

    It has 22 million tonnes per year (mtpa) of LNG on stream - more than a tenth of global demand - and is building 7 mtpa of new LNG capacity in Australia that will increase its production by 30 percent over the next few years.

    This deal adds a further 4 mtpa of owned capacity, taking its production to about 33 mtpa by 2017. Its closest rival among the oil majors is Exxon Mobil, which is expected to have about 20 mtpa of production in 2017.

    ...

    Gazprom Marketing & Trading Switzerland AG and Levant LNG Marketing Corporation executed the Heads of Agreement (HOA), outlining the main terms of an exclusive offtake arrangement from Tamar floating LNG project for a 20 year period.

    The aim of the future deal is to expand Gazprom’s LNG marketing and trading portfolio.


    The Tamar FLNG project is based on feed gas from Tamar and Dalit gas fields offshore Israel, in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, being developed by the Tamar upstream consortium (Noble Energy Mediterranean, Delek Drilling, Avner Oil Exploration, Isramco Negev-2 and Dor Gas).

    ...

    Some old quotes.

    The cost per unit of capacity will be about 44 percent lower in Tanzania than at Pluto LNG in Australia, the most expensive plant built, the bank said. Mozambique, ranked 213 of 227 countries for per capita income, may be even cheaper.

    Woodside Petroleum Ltd. (WPL), operator of the Pluto project in Western Australia, acknowledged that East Africa is an “extraordinary gas province.”

    ...

    Shell and Total have been in talks with Anadarko Petroleum Corp. (APC) and Eni SpA (ENI) about buying into gas fields discovered off Mozambique with more than 100 trillion cubic feet (2.8 trillion cubic meters) of gas resources, enough to meet Asian demand for almost five years.

    ...

    There are still 95 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves yet to be discovered in Mozambique and Tanzania, Wood Mackenzie Ltd. said Aug. 22. “There is clearly plenty of gas to supply the likely commercialization route of LNG -- theoretically enough to support up to 16 LNG trains.”

    ...

    “East Africa has got potential to be a bigger LNG supplier than for example Australia or Qatar on a much lower cost base,” said Barry Rushworth, the CEO at Australia’s Pancontinental Oil & Gas NL, which is drilling now a well off Kenya. “People are just not actually realizing how much potential East Africa has yet.”

    ...

    Shell, which plans to invest $30 billion in Australia over the next five years, is looking at opportunities in Africa. The Hague-based company has drilled in Tanzania and last month dropped its $1.8 billion bid for Cove Energy Plc, a U.K. explorer with assets in Mozambique, because Thailand’s state oil company made a higher offer. The decisions to walk away was described by the Anglo-Dutch company’s CEO Peter Voser as an “example of capital discipline.”

    ...

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  5. Ship headed for Broome with new OIL WELL CASINGS has a long dangerous night.

    A cargo ship spent a perilous night listing in rough seas about 320km north-west of Broome last night.

    The Mellum Trader, a 100m heavy load carrier, was headed for Broome when it began listing at an angle of 35 degrees.

    The ship was carrying new oil well casings and it is understood a cargo shift caused the heavy listing.

    As the 13 crew onboard worked to stabilise the vessel, the Australian Maritime Safety Authority coordinated rescue efforts.

    Jo Meehan from the AMSA said a plane and two tugboats were dispatched to the Mellum Trader, which was heading into bad weather in an attempt to right itself.

    The ship had to alter its course to restabilise, but by midnight, Ms Meehan said it was only listing 15 degrees.

    “We have two tugboats alongside now, the Far Scimitar and the Allison Tide,” she said.

    “They are currently alongside the vessel, but they will provide assistance if they need to.
    “The situation has improved.”

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