Get Ready for Bigger Gas Bills

The Meeting Place > Hot Topics > Get Ready for Bigger Gas Bills

Get Ready for Bigger Gas Bills

9 yrs ago

“australians pay close to the highest electricity prices in the world, and we’re about to start paying some of the world’s highest gas prices, too. that’s because we’re about to start exporting gas for the first time from the east coast, and there’s no limit to the amount of gas that can be sent overseas.

that means australians have to compete with energy-hungry customers in asia, who are prepared to pay top dollar for our gas. the message from the government is that if we want to use gas, we’re going to have to get used to paying top dollar, too.

coal seam gas mining wouldn’t be feasible in australia at the old price of $3-4 per gigajoule, because it costs a lot more to extract than conventional gas.

customers in asia are prepared to pay up to $18 per gigajoule for our gas. since there’s no policy to disconnect australia from these prices, our gas prices are now rising to meet what’s called the ‘netback’ price—the asian price, minus the cost of processing and shipping.”

as usual a few large foreign companies will make large profits and send most of that overseas. meanwhile, we australians will pay much more for our gas, and will be left with extensive environmental damage and increased carbon emissions.

aussie households pay some of the world’s highest electricity prices – they’re double what they were a decade ago, thanks largely to the over-investment in poles and wires. now we’re about to pay record prices for gas, thanks to the opening of the east coast export market.

household users of gas might have noticed their gas bills rising over the last few years. household bills have risen around 50 per cent, largely due to the almost $7 billion gas networks have spent on the pipelines that bring gas to our homes. these network charges already make up more than half of the average household’s gas bill.

get ready for your gas bill to triple (at least). and guess what – its nothing to do with the carbon tax or the greens.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/coal-seam-gas-exports-drive-up-energy-bills/5638226

6 comments

Well the Greens will be happy if the prices keep going up and up. Rubbing two sticks together may become the norm

why will the greens be happy about this? what's it got to do with two sticks?

Less than a decade ago, Australia enjoyed the lowest energy costs in the developed world. It was an intrinsic part of our comparative advantage as a trading nation. But today that advantage has largely gone.

As a result of the carbon tax, the renewable energy target and a range of other energy policy interventions at the federal and state government level, Australia has some of the highest electricity costs in the developed world.

Household electricity prices have increased by more than 110 per cent in the past five years, and are projected to increase another 7 per cent in 2014-15.

Australian businesses - which account for 70 per cent of total electricity use in Australia - have experienced an almost 80 per cent increase in prices since 2009 and there are more rises on the way.

The causes are not hard to find.

The carbon tax accounted for 16 per cent of the electricity bill for a typical large industrial user in NSW in 2012-13.

In 2013-14, the carbon tax added an estimated $6.4 billion to the nation’s tax bill.

That’s equivalent to a 10 per cent increase in company tax revenue in one year.

Defenders of the carbon tax often point to schemes such as the Californian emissions trading scheme as examples of comparable effort by other nations.

But we should not forget that Australia’s carbon tax raised the same amount of tax in its first six weeks as the Californian scheme is projected to raise in its first two years.

Official estimates suggest that the RET will generate a transfer of $20bn from householders and industrial users by 2020.

Australian Aborigines are renowned for their bush survival skills. One such skill is the ability to make fire simply from rubbing two sticks of wood together. This is an ancient skill which modern man has lost.

Pete, once again you forgot to give the site where you plagiarised your article. Brendan Pearson would be most annoyed. Why didn't you admit it was from the right wing media , the australian and so is naturally biased.

Amazing the article says nix about the main cost rise - poles & wires. Shame on you.

Yes comrade certainly comrade right away comrade I will only read the Pravda on the Yarra from now on . And watch only Hamas on Al Jazeera on our ABC comrade .

Is it necessary to try and be sarcastic & insulting ?

geomac

9 yrs ago

Radish

The increase in gas prices is due to our gas having to rise to export parity price . Unlike the USA for example we have legislation to ensure our domestic use is provided for first before assigning export permits for fuel . Not the small carbon price/tax or renewables but export parity price is the reason we are to pay more . Neither side of politics has addressed this imbalance in logic or policy .

geomac

9 yrs ago

The increase in gas prices is due to our gas having to rise to export parity price . Unlike the USA for example we have NO legislation to ensure our domestic use is provided for first before assigning export permits for fuel . Not the small carbon price/tax or renewables but export parity price is the reason we are to pay more . Neither side of politics has addressed this imbalance in logic or policy .

geomac

9 yrs ago

Australia is about to become the first country in the world to export coal seam gas—without the CSG boom in Queensland, exports on the east coast simply wouldn’t be viable. Equally, coal seam gas mining wouldn’t be feasible in Australia at the old price of $3-4 per gigajoule, because it costs a lot more to extract than conventional gas.

Customers in Asia are prepared to pay up to $18 per gigajoule for our gas. Since there’s no policy to disconnect Australia from these prices, our gas prices are now rising to meet what’s called the ‘netback’ price—the Asian price, minus the cost of processing and shipping.

For big industrial users, this is particularly bad news. ‘We're seeing prices leap from historical averages of sort of $3 to $4 a gigajoule to $9 to $12 a gigajoule or more,’ says Ben Eade, executive director of Manufacturing Australia. He says the impact of rising gas prices will ‘dwarf the impact of the carbon tax’.

A new report commissioned by industry groups and prepared by Deloitte Access Economics says skyrocketing gas prices will damage the Australian manufacturing sector to the tune of $118 billion over the next seven years, and lead to a loss of more than 14,000 jobs. ‘The fact is, high energy costs are killing industry in Australia,’ says Eade, ‘and high gas costs in particular.’

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/coal-seam-gas-exports-drive-up-energy-bills/5638226

source

Yes, I know all about the reason our prices are going up.

Wouldn't it be great if there were no greens and we could return to low energy prices .

"Wouldn't it be great if there were no greens and we could return to low energy prices . "

wouldn't it be great if there were no pete and we could return to logical, fact-based discussion on this forum.

geomac

9 yrs ago

“Gas is the last commodity to receive an international price,” he said. “The reality is that just as we have had an international price for oil for over four decades, gas is now being sold in Australia at a world price.”

But it isn’t all being sold at at the world price. By law in Western Australia 15 per cent of all the gas produced in that state has to stay in the state. Western Australia’s Liberal Premier Colin Barnett wants the law taken national. "Any other developed country in the world would be ensuring that their relative clean energy is preserved, or some part of it preserved,” he told Radio National.

He is right. The US, Canada and Egypt all have some sort of gas reservation policy. Yet here, notwithstanding the Coalition’s apparent obsession with cheap energy, it’s not on the agenda.

6 comments

To make a comment, please register or login

Get Ready for Bigger Gas Bills

Preview your comment