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Australia's LNG sector is long-term bullish, however needs a carbon cost: Russell

Australia's natural gas manufacturers are increasingly confident that their fuel is essential to the energy transition and will play a role across Asia as much as and beyond the 2050 netzero emissions targets of business and nations.

This optimism was on complete display at the industry's yearly event in the capital city of Western Australia state, which is likewise home to the bulk of the country's liquefied gas ( LNG) production.

Australia was the world's greatest LNG exporter up until being overtaken by the United States in 2015.

But it's not just a powerhouse in supplying the super-chilled fuel, as Australia controls seaborne exports of metallurgical coal utilized to make steel and ranks 2nd behind Indonesia in shipments of thermal coal, utilized generally to generate electrical power.

The yearly conference of the Australian Energy Producers, held today in Perth, was characterised by duplicated statements from a variety of industry leaders about how essential gas is, and will remain, in the energy shift.

The reality is rather more nuanced than the bullish stories, and the industry is mainly proper about some of its assumptions, positive on others and also presently falling well except what's required to really put Australia, and the Asian customers of its energy exports, on a path to net-zero emissions.

There are several essential arguments that the natural gas and LNG industry make to support their view about how necessary their product is, but the most crucial effectively still condenses to saying they are much better than coal.

The accepted position is that utilizing LNG to create power in an Asian country produces about half the carbon emissions than utilizing imported thermal coal, suggesting that the industry is correct in stating they are much better than coal.

Displacing coal does help the decarbonisation procedure, but decreasing emissions is just an action towards net-zero.

Ultimately, if you are burning a fossil fuel, you are developing emissions that you need to capture and save, or offset in some other way, if you want to achieve net-zero targets.

This is where the optimism revealed by the market gets more tricky.

For natural gas to have an ongoing function in the energy transition, several things require to happen, and some of them are largely beyond the control of the market.

CARBON RATE

The main requirement is a cost on carbon emissions, and not just in each country, there requires to be some kind of unified Asian carbon tax and credit system that allows for trading, investment and cooperation between energy exporting countries and those that import.

A carbon tax helps LNG displace coal and also offers a. significant incentive for the industry to invest to abate its own. emissions.

A strong focus in the conference this year was Carbon. Capture and Storage (CCS), with speaker after speaker when again. saying how important this technology will be to getting to net-zero.

The problem is the market has actually been saying this for years,. and doing extremely little to advance considerable projects.

Australian oil and gas producer Santos is among the few. that has really constructed a plant to capture emissions at its. Moomba gas hub in central Australia, which is expected to start. operations later this year.

The plant intends to keep a preliminary 1.7 million metric loads. of co2, which while helpful is small fraction of. Australia's yearly greenhouse gas emissions of 432 million loads. in 2022.

There are other CCS tasks under consideration, but even. if all of them concerned fulfillment, they would still just be the. initial steps on a very long decarbonisation roadway.

Australia does have competitive benefits for CCS,. consisting of appropriate geology and depleted tanks that can be. used for injecting carbon emissions.

But there isn't yet the carbon rates or regulative. structure that will allow for the importation of carbon dioxide. from nations in Asia where sequestration opportunities are. low, such as Japan and South Korea.

CCS is also likely to work far much better for abating the. upstream production of oil and gas, however will be really pricey. to carry out at the point of combustion in Asian energy. importers such as Japan.

Catching carbon emissions at a power plant would cost at. least $100 per ton for 1 million heaps per annum, according to. data from specialists Wood Mackenzie, a rate point that would. currently render the electricity produced economically unviable. without extra assistance.

We see CCS as last mile decarbonisation, Wood Mackenzie. analyst Stephanie Chiang informed in an interview on. Tuesday.

This is why a carbon rate is the necessary piece of the. puzzle.

It provides certainty to financial investment decisions, it is technology. agnostic insofar as it will enable companies to work out the best. approach for them to abate, and if high enough, it will enable. fossil fuels to stay in the energy mix through CCS.

The viewpoints expressed here are those of the author, a columnist. .