Editorial: Northern Gas Pipeline an important piec...
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It seems like only a couple of months ago I attended the sod-turning to start the work at the Mount Isa Compressor end of Jemena’s Northern Gas Pipeline. Looking back at the archives I find it was actually 15 months ago so the time was right to return to the site near Diamantina Power Station on the Boulia Road for the official opening on Friday. The opening truly represents a nation building achievement. As Minister for Resources Matt Canavan said in his speech on the day, Australia has always been a reluctant nation. Senator Canavan reminded us that Western Australia would not join the new federation in 1901 until it was promised a railway to the east coast. One hundred years later our rail system remains patchy with a plethora of different gauges and crucial missing links – such as the Mount Isa to Tennant Creek rail line which has still made it no further than the drawing board. So it is pleasing to see another missing link completed on that same Mount Isa to Tennant Creek corridor. Transport of gas, like rail and electricity remains a patchwork quilt of state-based pipes. The eastern seaboard is well connected with the Moomba gasfields in the Red Centre linking to Mount Isa via the Carpentaria pipeline and the coast and export markets via the Wallumbilla Hub and the Gladstone LNG plants. But WA and the Northern Territory remained gas “islands”. The new Northern Gas Pipeline now brings the Territory into the fold, linking the Darwin LNG plants, the Mereenie gas fields at Alice Springs, and the bi-directional Amadeus Gas Pipeline between Alice and Darwin with the east coast via the NGP which starts in Tennant Creek. The importance of that pipeline will increase as the NT’s valuable Beetaloo Basin, 500km south of Darwin comes online. The pressure is now on to create a new pipeline from Isa to Wallumbilla to untap the unconventional resources of the Galilee Basin around the Aramac region. The basin holds 8000 PJ of gas resources -15 times the annual east coast domestic gas consumption, but the gas remains commercially unproven and it is currently stranded from the east coast gas grid network. Over to you Jemena – Derek Barry
https://nnimgt-a.akamaihd.net/transform/v1/crop/frm/Y5kUJ9Q7iPMNzBC9i5WqCU/5c5ed30d-8302-4323-8858-9be24f565da7.jpg/r2_394_4926_3176_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg
December 16 2018 - 11:22AM
It seems like only a couple of months ago I attended the sod-turning to start the work at the Mount Isa Compressor end of Jemena’s Northern Gas Pipeline.
Looking back at the archives I find it was actually 15 months ago so the time was right to return to the site near Diamantina Power Station on the Boulia Road for the official opening on Friday.
As Minister for Resources Matt Canavan said in his speech on the day, Australia has always been a reluctant nation.
Senator Canavan reminded us that Western Australia would not join the new federation in 1901 until it was promised a railway to the east coast.
One hundred years later our rail system remains patchy with a plethora of different gauges and crucial missing links – such as the Mount Isa to Tennant Creek rail line which has still made it no further than the drawing board. So it is pleasing to see another missing link completed on that same Mount Isa to Tennant Creek corridor.
The NGP as an important missing link.
Transport of gas, like rail and electricity remains a patchwork quilt of state-based pipes. The eastern seaboard is well connected with the Moomba gasfields in the Red Centre linking to Mount Isa via the Carpentaria pipeline and the coast and export markets via the Wallumbilla Hub and the Gladstone LNG plants. But WA and the Northern Territory remained gas “islands”.
The new Northern Gas Pipeline now brings the Territory into the fold, linking the Darwin LNG plants, the Mereenie gas fields at Alice Springs, and the bi-directional Amadeus Gas Pipeline between Alice and Darwin with the east coast via the NGP which starts in Tennant Creek.
The importance of that pipeline will increase as the NT’s valuable Beetaloo Basin, 500km south of Darwin comes online.
The pressure is now on to create a new pipeline from Isa to Wallumbilla to untap the unconventional resources of the Galilee Basin around the Aramac region.
The basin holds 8000 PJ of gas resources -15 times the annual east coast domestic gas consumption, but the gas remains commercially unproven and it is currently stranded from the east coast gas grid network.
Over to you Jemena – Derek Barry