Sir – I will be discussing the economic and job opportunities of developing the Northern Territory’s onshore gas industry with Federal Resources Minister Keith Pitt at a meeting in Canberra today.
The Beetaloo Basin represents an enormous opportunity in shale gas development that could bring thousands of much needed jobs to the Northern Territory. The sub-basin has an estimated 178,200 petajoules of gas.
The Federal Government’s Exploring for the Future Program has been investigating the potential of gas resources in the Beetaloo and Barkly region, while late last year the first drilling in the Beetaloo since the lifting of the moratorium recommenced with the spudding of Origin Energy’s Kyalla 117 well.
The opportunities in growing the gas industry are exciting for the Territory and that the CLP is steadfast in its belief that onshore gas is critical to growing our economy.
“I have clearly committed that a future CLP Government will implement all 135 of the Pepper Inquiry recommendations to ensure a robust, well regulated onshore gas industry.
Minister Pitt has the enthusiasm to help develop these resources which have the potential to provide prosperity, not only for the regions but also Darwin.
Minister Pitt said the development of gas in the Northern Territory will require certainty on the part of the Territory Government and that over 25 years a moderate scale of onshore gas development could be worth $9 billion nationally, drive development in Northern Australia, and generate thousands of jobs in the Northern Territory.
Opposition Leader Lia Finocchiaro (pictured).
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
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Given that a number of the recommendations have already been either watered down or put aside by the NT Government, including the promise to implement all 135 recommendations before fracking goes into production, Ms Finocchiaro is going to have a pretty hard time keeping her word.
As for the thousands of jobs for Territorians, the construction of big fly-in-fly-out workers’ camps by the gas companies doesn’t augur well for that to occur.
All in all, it looks as if fracking isn’t going to be of too much benefit to the NT, but we’ll be left with the mess to try to clean up afterwards.
So much for any hope of honouring climate change commitments!
Australia will end up being one of the largest contributors of greenhouse emissions in the world, with a ruined environment to show for it.