Shell committed to energy security
Shell acknowledges the vital role energy plays in our economy and we strongly support measures to help Australians with cost-of-living pressures.
We have proudly supplied Australian homes and businesses with energy for more than 120 years. We look forward to continuing to supply our customers and investing in the energy Australia needs to transition to net zero, including gas, wind, solar and batteries. But we must have a stable regulatory and policy environment to create the right signals which encourage this investment.
On Monday, Shell made the difficult decision to pause an Expression of Interest (EOI) process, which had been in-market for more than a month, to supply an additional 50 petajoules of gas to domestic customers in 2023 and 2024. Shell was undertaking this process in compliance with the voluntary Heads of Agreement we entered into with the Australian Government in September.
Shell remains committed to continuing to play a role in Australia’s energy security. This pause of the EOI does not impact our current contracts or supply to existing customers, which for next year, is more than the volume offered under the EOI.
This was not an option we wanted to take, however, given the proposed changes to the gas market, we could not continue running a process which may not have complied with new laws being passed imminently.
Federal Resources Minister Madeline King acknowledged this when she said such a response was “not unreasonable in the circumstances” and that government would work with producers to ensure that “the expression of interest process meets the requirements of the regulations we intend to bring into force”.
