PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (Appea) has again called on Victoria to reconsider its ban on onshore gas exploration and development, dismissing claims by the state government that the ban will not affect gas prices for local residents.

“This issue goes beyond the government surrendering to the activists’ fear campaign against hydraulic fracturing (fracking),” Appea CEO Dr Malcolm Roberts said on Friday. “The Victorian government has not just banned fracturing; it has imposed a five-year moratorium on developing any onshore gas resources, regardless of whether or not fracturing is needed.”

The Victorian government in November introduced the Resource Legislation Amendment (Fracking Ban) Bill to Parliament with the aim of permanently banning fracking in the state, while also placing a five-year moratorium on the development of any onshore gas resource, without explanation.
  
“There is nothing novel or unusual about developing conventional gas. Australia has been doing it safely for decades. Victoria itself benefited from a safe and successful onshore conventional gas industry for 20 years until 2006,” Roberts said.

“The government’s own submission to the Parliamentary inquiry into unconventional gas noted this history and indicated that further discoveries in the Otways are possible.”

Roberts said that instead of exploiting proven gas reservoirs, the government has killed off exploration and possible future development. 

“It is facing a legal challenge from a business which has spent A$92-million in exploring prospective resources in Victoria.

“It is a circular argument for the government to ban exploration and then justify the ban by saying that explorers have not found commercial reserves. It is equivalent to stopping a student from sitting an examination – and then telling the student that they had failed the examination.”

Roberts added that Victorian customers could not wait until 2020 for the state government to find the political courage to reconsider allowing conventional gas exploration and development.

“Production from the offshore basins – the Gippsland, Otway and Bass basins – supplying Victoria is expected to peak this year and then fall. Independent experts forecast that production will fall by 15% to 2020 and by 40% to 2025.

“There is no doubt that Victorians will face higher gas prices as supply tightens and they are obliged to buy more gas – if available – from distant sources in South Australia and Queensland.

“The Victorian government seems intent on playing green politics by sticking with its unjustified ban on hydraulic fracturing. But it could step back from the bizarre decision to ban exploration and development of gas resources that do not require fracturing. Doing so would be in the interests of the 2.2-million households in Victoria relying on gas.”