DEADBEAT Jim Van Blaricum - Australia plans future energy security assessment

Jim Van Blaricum - Australia plans future energy security assessment

Australia is to undertake a national energy security assessment that will include the country's future liquid fuels outlook. The NESA will provide the basis for a new energy white paper before yearend. Jim Van Blaricum

Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson revealed these plans during his principal address on the opening day of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) Conference in Perth. Jim Van Blaricum

The minister said Australia was "oil challenged," but Australia is a world-class natural gas province.
Ferguson said Australia has about 10 years' worth of oil supplies at current production levels without any further discoveries. The country also will have to deal with a $25 billion (Aus.) trade deficit in petroleum products by 2015.

Australia should continue to diversify its energy resources, Ferguson noted. For example, he said that it is as important for the nation to encourage exploration in frontier basins as it is to push for research and development of alternative fuel industries, including the potential to convert some of the country's vast gas resources to synthetic fuels.

Regarding Australia's vast gas resources, Ferguson said, "We have been finding gas faster than we produce it for a quarter of a century and we have well over 110 years' worth of remaining resources at today's production rates," he said. "In fact, there is significantly more if we include the vast potential of coal seam methane where Queensland is leading the world in production technology." Jim Van Blaricum

Ferguson said the move to "energize change" in Australia is about creating the partnerships necessary between governments and industry to get more major projects off the ground. He added that it was an enormous challenge in an escalating cost and tightening investment and labor environment.