The worst gasbag in Australia is the rebranded Australian Energy Producers (AEP) lobby, formerly APPEA.
It is the LNG cartel foghorn. Today it takes the cake.
What is often overlooked in the debate is that over the past three months, east coast gas prices have remained at their lowest levels in years. Remarkably, this has occurred during the most significant disruption to global gas markets in decades.
The historically low gas prices in Australia highlight two important points.
First, that a well-supplied domestic market delivers lower prices. Second, it disproves the notion that domestic gas prices are linked to LNG export prices. If they were, domestic spot prices would be more than three times higher.
Christ almighty. The gasbag would bury its mother to fossilise her and dig her up as gas if it could.
The only reason we have low prices is the reservation debate, not the other way around, as GLNG has admitted.
Santos-backed Gladstone LNG is forgoing lucrative export opportunities as global prices surge, opting instead to limit output rather than risk driving up domestic gas prices and inviting a confrontation with the Albanese government.
The decision highlights how the threat of intervention is already influencing behaviour before any formal Labor reservation policy takes effect.
Gladstone LNG chief executive Stephen Harty delivered the blunt assessment on Tuesday, underscoring the political and commercial tightrope facing producers.
“If we were as brazen as we’ve been accused of, we would be buying up every last molecule we could and putting it on boats and making a truckload,” said Mr Harty said.
Asked why GLNG was not at full capacity, Mr Harty said: “Because that would be suicide.”
“Doing that, there is no doubt that there would be very serious repercussions from a political point of view,” he told a gas conference.
I might add that gas prices are no longer low. They are high, though I suspect this is more a cold snap than politics.
As a result, spot electricity prices are rising sharply.
That local prices are not at Asian highs, more than double, is proof only that if you pressure the cartel, it will fold like a cheap suit and leave the cheap gas in Australia while it makes a fortune shipping the expensive stuff to Asia. Recalling that its earnings are being upgraded across the board after a period of low prices in Australia.
This case is living proof that reservation works. This argument is even true in its verbal form.
The twisted gasbag that is AEP should be banned from all media coverage.
It is a preternatural liar designed to defraud the Australian people: a foreign-controlled, national interest-destroying mouthpiece in the service of China and rapacious corporations.
