Who owns Australia’s gas?

DOES AUSTRALIA ACTUALLY OWN ANYTHING ANYMORE?

Australia was the world’s biggest exporter of Liquefied Natural Gas in 2021.

So why are we now paying more for our gas than overseas buyers?

More importantly, why are we faced with a crippling gas shortage?

Ask the Queensland Government.

The days of enjoying some of the cheapest gas prices in the world ended when our Government began exporting LNG back in 2015.

Seems LNG exporters have not just been exporting our coal seam gas reserves offshore, but gas from conventional sources as well.

Companies like Esso and BHP Billiton have reaped a windfall from the practice, while domestic households and industry gas users have been left to compete on price with foreign-owned LNG exporters needing to fill their overseas export contracts.

The Queensland Government should have taken a leaf out of the Western Australian Government’s playbook.

It wasn’t stupid.  It passed a law requiring LNG exporters to ensure that 15 percent of liquefied natural gas (LNG) was reserved for domestic use.

This has kept gas prices in WA much lower than those on the East Coast and ensured a secure domestic supply for West Australians.

Over on the East Coast, however, we are hearing of various proposals for building multi-million dollar gas import facilities – presumably to import back what we sent offshore at 100 times the cost.

Just to add insult to injury, a new report shows that virtually all Australia’s gas projects, producers and facilities are now foreign-owned.

The Australian Institute researchers, who had access to the Bloomberg Professional Terminal database, has revealed the extent to which foreign ownership has been grossly under-counted in official figures.

Not only are companies like Shell and Chevron 100 per cent foreign-owned, but so are many supposed Australian companies like BHP, Santos and Woodside.

BHP is actually 94% foreign owned and 82 per cent American owned.

So a more accurate description for BHP, nowadays, would be the “Big American”.

Four LNG Export Projects – Prelude, Ichthys, Gorgon and Queensland Curtis LNG – are 100% foreign owned.

Even the least foreign-owned, Pluto, is 84 percent foreign owned.

The report calculated the average foreign equity share by project capacity is 95.7 percent, with Australia’s share, a measly 4.3 percent.

These foreign-owned gas companies are all funneling their profits to owners overseas, and paying little to no tax on any of it here.

Worse, offshore LNG projects are only subject to a petroleum resource rent tax, not Commonwealth royalties.

Something which analysts say has cost Australians billions of dollars in lost revenue per project.

LNG Export Companies 95.7% Foreign Owned: Research Report