ASX Listed Blue Energy Proposing Gas Pipeline to Link Bowen Basin to Queensland Market
ASX listed Blue Energy is proposing a gas pipeline to link the Bowen Basin gas province to the south east Queensland gas market.
Discussions on the new pipeline are being conducted in parallel with Blue’s continued liaison with potential gas buyers, which now include southern buyers, the company said on Friday. .
Blue is seeking interest from pipeline construction companies to fund the construction of the proposed new link, which is part of the effort to commercialize Blue’s gas reserves and resources in the Moranbah area.
The Moranbah gas province is a known eastern Australian gas producing area, with commercial gas production having commenced in the mid 2000’s and which to date has been directed into the Townsville industrial market as well as providing feedstock for the local Moranbah ammonium nitrate business. Blue’s reserves are only some 400m from this neighbouring production.
Gas exploration by Blue, Arrow Energy and others in the Moranbah region has delineated a very large gas resource which exceeds the current local demand and, with no direct pipeline connection to either Gladstone or Wallumbilla, this resource currently remains untapped, the company stated. Changes in the global corporate landscape for some of the Gladstone LNG operators mean that the priority of Arrow’s Bowen Basin gas volumes may have been re-assessed, and as such Arrow’s timing to bring its gas to Gladstone also re-assessed.
Blue sees this as an opportunity to engage with southern gas users, who have been vocal about their inability to secure any long term gas supply in the face of unprecedented gas export demand from Curtis Island. The company believes an accord between these end users and the non LNG export aligned upstream party’s will enable development of established resources in a timelier manner than having to rely on the full exploration process to yield new gas supply.
According to Blue, successive state and federal governments have presided over the policy and regulatory complication of the onshore exploration and production process, to the point where it is now effectively not possible to explore in NSW, Victoria or Tasmania. "In those states where exploration is still possible, this process complication has lengthened the timeframe from exploration to production to the extent that it is no longer possible to have confidence that sufficient gas can be brought to market when the market needs the gas."