PERTH (miningweekly.com) – A new report by PwC has identified the Australian oil and gas sector as one of the country’s highest value-adding industries.

The report, commissioned by the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (Appea), revealed that for every dollar of production, the oil and gas sector added 70c of value-add compared to an average of 49c for all other industries.

The report also found that the oil and gas industry’s yearly contribution to Australia’s economic output was expected to more than double from A$32-billion in 2012/13 to A$67-billion by 2029/30.

This equated to around 2.6% of the gross domestic product (GDP), an increase of more than 0.5 percentage points in the industry’s current contribution to the national economy.

Furthermore, the report indicated that continued strong demand domestically and internationally, would see the estimated growth in the oil and gas industry be higher than the rest of the Australian economy over the next decade, which would provide a substantial boost to national income and tax revenues.

Under the current projections, the sector was expected to employ more than 35 000 people by 2029/30.

Appea CEO David Byers said on Thursday that the analysis showed why encouraging investment in the oil and gas sector should be a key focus for the government.

“This is further evidence that natural gas is one of Australia’s great strengths with a higher relative contribution to the economy than almost every other industry.

“It is crucial, therefore, that calls for policy interventions that seek to force noncommercial outcomes continue to be resisted.”

Byers said that gas reservation, for example, would simply divert resources from one of the economy’s most valuable sectors to less efficient sectors, adding that the government had to focus on a long-term, market-based energy policy.

He said the Energy White Paper, which will set out an integrated approach to energy policy, needed to focus on efficient and competitive markets, developing new energy sources to ease demand/supply constraints, regulatory reform and the need to remove unnecessary barriers to continued investment in oil and gas production.

“Australia’s abundant reserves of natural gas make it possible to meet our own and much of the region’s growing energy needs, particularly cleaner energy needs, over the coming decades.

“But we cannot take the industry’s success for granted. The policies developed through the White Paper process must ensure that Australia’s oil and gas explorers and producers are not disadvantaged against the producers of other energy sources here in Australia or overseas.”

The White Paper is expected to be delivered before the end of the year.