Oz Blue Calls for Bowen Basin Pipeline

Sydney-listed Blue Energy has called for building a pipeline from Queensland’s Bowen Basin that will help in unlocking the basin’s discovered gas resources, it said on April 30.

“Blue recommends Bowen Basin southern gas pipeline project to federal and state governments to unlock 15,000 petajoules of discovered gas resource to mitigate impacts of the well-known east coast domestic gas shortage, now identified in the Aemo Gas Statement of Opportunities (GSOO March 2020) report,” the company said.

The company said it has been in discussions with representatives of both the federal and Queensland governments to highlight the need for national energy infrastructure projects to ensure timely and reliable delivery of energy to domestic east coast manufacturers and gas users.

Blue has now started pre-feasibility study for Bowen Basin fast-start gas fired power generation project to electricity to north Queensland grid. The company is assessing the potential for the development of gas fired peaking generation capacity in certain gas properties within its 100% owned ATP 814 tenure, which consists of seven disconnected blocks in the Bowen Basin across an area ranging from south of Moranbah up to Newlands in the Northern Bowen Basin.

“Pre-feasibility studies are under way to review the cost/benefit of scalable fast-start gas turbines aimed at providing peaking electricity generation and frequency/inertia services from within the Monslatt block to tie into the Nebo substation infrastructure,” Blue said.

Meanwhile, Blue said it continues to pursue additional gas buyers in the Townsville and Moranbah market, in addition to the already announced MoU with Queensland Pacific Metals signed in 2019.

Gas supply for Townsville customers would likely be sourced from Blue’s 100% Sapphire block in ATP 814, which is in close proximity to existing gas gathering and processing infrastructure and is connected to the Townsville market by the North Queensland Gas Pipeline.