Jemena to Expand North Oz Gas Pipe

Australian energy infrastructure company, Jemena, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with shale explorer Tamboran Resources to expand Northern Gas Pipeline (NGP), it said on November 11.

The MoU will see Jemena expedite plans to invest over A$5bn in enlarging the capacity of NGP while also working to extend the pipeline from the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo basin to the Wallumbilla gas hub in Queensland. As part of the MoU Tamboran, which holds 25% of Santos’ exploration venture for the Beetaloo, will be responsible for upstream activities across the basin.  

“This is an important step towards delivering on the Commonwealth government’s plans for the Beetaloo as part of a gas-led recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic,” Jemena’s managing director, Frank Tudor, said.

Jemena said it planned to progressively increase the NGP’s capacity from around 90 terajoules/day of gas to 1,000 terajoules/day using compression and looping. The NGP will then be connected to the company’s proposed Galilee gas pipeline, which will span around 585 km and will transport gas from Galilee Energy’s Glenaras gas project near Longreach in the Galilee basin to the Wallumbilla gas hub.  

“Tamboran is focused on developing early stage, top-decile unconventional gas reserves in the NT. The announcement of our partnership with Jemena represents a key building block in our efforts to bring new supplies of natural gas to energy starved eastern Australia by 2023-24,” said Joel Riddle, Tamboran’s CEO.  

Jemena anticipates transporting up to 200 terajoules/day of gas via the NGP from 2025, with transport quantities increasing as the extended and expanded pipelines are commissioned from the second half of the 2020s. The company is also considering construction of a pipeline north from the Beetaloo into Darwin once new LNG trains or local demand centres have been sanctioned, which Jemena believes could occur in the late 2020s.