PERTH (miningweekly.com) – The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (Appea) has told the federal government’s Jobs and Skills Summit that the nation’s oil and gas workforce will play a pivotal role in the cleaner energy future given the skills and expertise in the sector.
“If science and technology is to help get us there, then Australia will need the brains, skills and creativity of our people to facilitate it and our industry has a competitive advantage to do this,” Appea CEO Samantha McCulloch said on Thursday.
“With gas set to play a critical role in a net-zero world, the industry can be the foundation for the technologies and skills to get us there. Our sector employs 80 000 people upstream to power homes and businesses to deliver energy security and lower emissions, both in Australia and overseas.
“But these people do so much more, enabling almost A$500-billion of annual economic activity and supporting countless other jobs given the role of natural gas in firming renewables in electricity generation, facilitating manufacturing and transport, and as a feedstock to hydrogen.
“Our members are already integrated energy companies and the skills of our workforce are transferrable to the decarbonisation technologies we will need at scale. For example, our skills in subsurface geology and reservoir characteristics give us a competitive advantage to deploy carbon capture, utilisation and storage technologies.”
McCulloch said that Australia could also use its skills and knowledge as one of the world’s largest producers and exporters of natural gas to enable potential new energy exports such as hydrogen.
“The skills requirement of the oil and gas industry is strongly aligned with the future growth of the hydrogen industry,” she said.