Australian Domestic Gas Outlook speech

Firstly, I would like to acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land where we meet today, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, and acknowledge their continuing connection to country. I pay my respects to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

This Australian Domestic Gas Outlook conference is yet again incredibly well timed.

The conflict in the Middle East is a sobering reminder, if we ever needed one, of the incredible importance energy continues to play in human life and economic progress. Our thoughts are with the people in the Middle East who are directly affected by this conflict and with Australians who are already feeling the impact in their daily lives and businesses of what has been described as the largest energy shock in history.

At times like this, there is increased risk that strong and stable policy settings are sidelined by short‑term measures or populist rhetoric, rather than remaining focused on the long-term settings and investment certainty needed for energy security and regional security.

A common theme across the various speakers today is evident – our national interest is best served when we have a well-supplied, affordable and efficient domestic gas market AND a thriving LNG export industry. And the key to achieving those twin objectives is more supply.

Australia is endowed with the gas resources to achieve this. But we need the regulatory settings, and market design, that will incentivise, rather than constrain, sustained investment in new supply from exploration and appraisal all the way to development, domestic sales and export.

My task today is to speak about the pathways to providing competitive gas supply and to do so in the context of the outlook for domestic gas in Australia.

I do that from the perspective of Shell in our 125^th year of operations in Australia – having supplied energy to Australians and powered progress and prosperity in our country since Federation in 1901. And drawing on Shell’s unique perspective right across the value chain today as a frontier basin explorer, a major domestic gas supplier, a gas and electricity market participant, a renewable generator and battery operator, and as one of Australia’s largest integrated gas/LNG producers.

In doing so I will:

1. Briefly discuss the context and the challenge of today.
2. Describe the divergent pathways that Shell sees for competitive gas supply and energy security more broadly.
3. Share some reflections on the ongoing Gas Market Review; and
4. Make the case for stable, well-designed fiscal settings to underpin investment.

Now, more than ever, is the time to get behind gas, to establish the settings for sustained investment in new supply.

This is precisely the time when stable domestic gas production and stable reliable LNG production are vital to our energy security and our economic resilience. Governments at the state and federal level have an opportunity to back investment in Australian gas and should resist the instinct to intervene at the expense of long-term energy security, economic resilience and national prosperity.

Today we stand in a clarifying moment for society here in Australia and around the world. We are experiencing a system-wide disruption of global energy markets, with exceptional constraints on supply having an almost immediate impact on international prices of oil and gas.

Security of supply underpins our economy, manufacturing, large and small businesses and every household that uses energy in its many forms. And the conflict in the Middle East has exposed our vulnerabilities.

This extraordinary supply shock is taking place during a period in which the role of gas – and the contributions of gas producers – have become unfairly and inaccurately contested in our public discourse.

Against that backdrop, we can proudly attest that:

• Our domestic gas market remains well supplied and domestic gas prices remain consistent with pre-conflict prices and less than half of current international LNG prices.
• LNG facilities in Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Queensland are supplying reliable LNG to our Asian trade partners when they are at their most vulnerable, providing energy security and reinforcing the relationships of trust and support that also underpin regional security. The fact is Australian LNG positions the nation well when we ask our Asian trade partners for their support to continue to supply Australia with liquid fuels and fertiliser during this supply shock.
• The gas industry has invested more than $400 billion in Australia since 2010 to put us in this strong and secure position today.
• The gas industry is Australia’s second largest taxpayer – contributing $21.9 billion in taxes and other government payments last financial year.
• The development of the Queensland LNG projects has unlocked significant additional volumes of gas for the domestic market that were uneconomic without the scale of LNG. In fact, Queensland LNG projects currently supply 40% of the domestic demand in the east coast gas market.

We can also be rightly proud that as an industry, we have leant in to support the design and introduction of a well-designed, prospective domestic supply obligation supported by active measures to increase supply, because it is in the national interest to do so.

Yet we still operate in a context in which vested interests wilfully distort our contribution to the domestic market, our conduct in the marketplace and the tax that we pay.

The industry also faces unprecedented levels of activism targeted to slow down and challenge approvals, increase industry taxes and delay project execution. While carrying the burden of a complex, duplicative and often contradictory patchwork of regulations.

In the environment we face today, critical oil and gas exploration is challenged by lack of opportunity – limited offshore acreage releases, regulatory impediments to conducting seismic surveys, and extended approval timelines that burn through the capital of our small and mid-cap explorers before they can even drill a well. Queensland stands as a beacon of hope in this regard and is to be applauded for its support.

In this increasingly febrile and contested public discourse, the space for strong stable policy development through the Gas Market Review and for stable fiscal settings that encourage the investment in additional supply that Australia needs to prosper, appears increasingly narrow.

The coming decade will be critical for Australia as we compete on a global scale for the next multi-decade energy investments. As we seek to unlock new frontiers and technologies, and ensure that we have abundant supply to support a Future Made in Australia and capture the opportunity afforded by rising LNG demand in Asia.

Today’s opportunities are more technically challenging and higher cost, but Australia’s continued competitiveness and resilience rely on being able to unlock these new sources of supply and on creating the conditions for the investment that this requires.

And as we stand today, there are two divergent pathways that Australia may take in relation to gas supply – one straight and wide, the other narrow and arduous.

And we need to make a choice.

It is a choice that is of enormous consequence for Australia’s strategic capability, economic resilience and national security.

Can we and our political leaders look through the “noise” of populist anti-gas, anti-business rhetoric and through the sustained pressures of the Middle East crisis to discern the “signal” – that our national interest is best served when we have a well-supplied, affordable and efficient domestic gas market AND a thriving LNG export industry.

And that now, more than ever, the key to achieving those twin objectives is more supply by establishing regulatory settings, and market design, that will incentivise rather than constrain the multiple waves of sustained private investment that we need to seize the incredible opportunity before us.

Can gas buyers and producers, employers and unions, states and the Commonwealth, domestic and integrated players all pull together in pursuit of that shared national interest so that we choose the straight and wide pathway to competitive gas supply – the proverbial “up” button on the elevator of national prosperity?

Or will we get distracted by the “noise” and default to the narrow and arduous pathway in which we are forced to carve up an ever-diminishing pie rather than growing the pie for the benefit of all Australians – the proverbial “down” button on the elevator, undermining our energy security and economic resilience?

It is a stark choice and a vital choice.

I recognise that there are complex issues that need to be resolved and a delicate balance to be struck between addressing genuine near-term pressures on energy input costs and the cost of living today and our longer term strategic ambitions for energy security, investment in gas supply and a Future Made in Australia.

We must beware so-called easy solutions!

“Easy solutions” like bans on new oil and gas projects, calls for a 25% levy on all LNG exports, price caps and forced sale obligations make great headlines, but would fundamentally erode the investment case for new gas supply from LNG exporters and domestic producers alike, exacerbating – not solving – our challenges.

That is why the gas market review is a vital opportunity to put in place an enduring and holistic regulatory framework that will help grow supply and support a competitive and efficient domestic alongside a thriving LNG industry.

Because abundant domestic supply and export production are not mutually exclusive. In a well-designed and efficient market, with settings that actively support investment in supply, they are mutually reinforcing.

We must avoid the “false choice” between domestic gas and LNG exports that is often presented in the public commentary.

What is clear in reports from the Gas Market Review and the ACCC is that the current patchwork of market interventions put in place since 2017 has not worked.

In a well-functioning market, supply and contracting decisions should not be driven, as they are today, by a quarterly policy escalation risk or the expectation of further intervention to dampen prices. This cycle has distorted relationships between buyers and sellers and introduced sovereign risk for all producers on a rolling basis.

This is our opportunity to put that right and to future-proof the east coast gas market, cement Australia’s reputation as a reliable energy partner to the region and break the cycle of short-term fixes – if we get the details right.

With the latest Gas Statement of Opportunities from AEMO confirming that the east coast gas market is expected to be well supplied until at least 2030, there is time to get the policy right.

To deliver this, Australia’s national reservation policy must be well-designed, prospective, evidence-based and carefully calibrated to meet domestic energy needs rather than engineering a structural over-supply. It must remove the current policy patchwork replacing it with a streamlined, fit-for-purpose framework. And it must protect investment signals and market opportunities for exporters and domestic-only producers alike while maintaining our key trading relationships and role as a reliable energy partner.

A poorly designed or poorly calibrated scheme that creates a structurally oversupplied domestic market risks significant and damaging unintended consequences, including discouraging investment, reducing competition and crowding out new sources of domestic supply – ultimately exacerbating future supply and price pressures.

Getting this right is particularly important as industry works to unlock exciting new basins such as the Taroom Trough and the Beetaloo Basin, as well as new prospects close to southern markets in the Otway Basin.

Most people here today would be aware that Shell has a material position and is exploring in the Taroom Trough, an exciting new backfill and domestic market opportunity. Initial results have been promising and our appraisal and testing program is gathering pace. The Beetaloo Basin is also a highly prospective play with potential to produce enormous volumes– up to 6,000TJ/day, nearly 10 times the volume of Bass Strait by analyst accounts.

If the subsurface results are successful, realising the full potential in the Taroom and Beetaloo would be a gamechanger for our domestic market and also underpin LNG exports into the 2040s and 50s. But realising this potential will require export scale to be economic and aligned regulatory settings at all levels of government. It will require many billions of dollars of private capital – most of it international – to fully appraise and develop these projects. So we need to get the investment settings right if we are to reap the benefits for our domestic market, the productivity uplift that stems from mega-capital projects and the economic benefits for our nation that flow from being a secure, reliable trade partner with Asia.

Stable, well-designed fiscal and regulatory settings will underpin investment

The gas market review had been underway for more than nine months when the Middle East conflict erupted and with it, calls for a windfall tax or export levy.

I understand why governments look for additional levers when cost-of-living pressures are real and immediate as they are now.

Increasing the fiscal burden on gas exports is not the answer. The gas industry is already the second-highest tax paying industry in Australia, has invested over $400 billion since 2010 and last financial year contributed $21.9 billion in tax, royalties and other payments to governments. And the current high oil and international LNG prices will already flow through to Australians through higher corporate income tax and PRRT receipts payable by gas producers to the federal government – ensuring that Australians share in the upside of higher international prices to offset some of the impacts domestically.

Experience around that world has shown that when fiscal terms are rapidly and repeatedly changed, global investment capital retreats to more stable and balanced fiscal systems. Investment declines and energy security erodes. As the International Energy Agency’s Dr Fatih Birol noted earlier this month, investors want stable and predictable policy: “Energy investors are like butterflies. When they are scared, they fly away.”

Imposing changes to PRRT or a new 25% LNG export levy, so soon after restructuring the PRRT, would send a strong negative signal to Australia’s regional trade partners who rely on our LNG, right when we are dependent upon those partners to continue to provide secure supplies of liquid fuels. It would run entirely contrary to the statement that Prime Minister Albanese made just last week with the Singaporean government in which he reaffirmed our shared commitment to strengthen energy security, to support the flow of essential goods including diesel and LNG between our two countries.

Doing so would materially raise the effective tax rate paid by LNG producers, erode project values and render many of Australia’s future growth opportunities uneconomic and uncompetitive compared to global alternatives. It would discourage investment, reducing our energy security. And let’s not forget the devastating impact on jobs and the economies of regional Queensland and Western Australia if we’re to turn off backfill projects and leave our national resource in the ground because we have chosen to make them uneconomic.

As the terrible events of the last month demonstrate, without access to secure, reliable sources of energy our economies and our societies are vulnerable. Our economic resilience depends on energy security.

This is something that our regional trade partners in Asia for whom energy security is existential know instinctively. But perhaps it is something that Australia, blessed as it is with abundant natural resources, has taken somewhat for granted.

Australia has the chance to choose the “straight and wide” pathway to competitive gas supply and to grasp the opportunity that our abundant resources afford us.

That means:

• Being proud of the role that our gas plays in providing domestic energy security and regional security and in supporting the energy transition;
• Recognising the enormous economic contribution that our industry makes to Australia through our direct investment, export revenues, taxes, job creation and support of regional communities;
• Calling out and correcting those who deliberately distort and misrepresent that contribution in pursuit of objectives that run contrary to our national interest;
• Supporting a consistent and enduring set of national and state legislation and regulations that create the conditions for sustained investment, for strong community and environmental outcomes, and for efficient market mechanisms; and
• Resisting the instinct – even when well intentioned – to intervene in ways that distort market signals or dampen investment sentiment.

Now more than ever is the time to get behind gas, as key to our energy security and our economic and societal resilience. Thank you.