Showing posts with label Coal Seam Gas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coal Seam Gas. Show all posts

Wednesday 22 March 2017

GAS SHORTAGE! GAS SHORTAGE!: Why on earth do you think we would believe you now, Malcolm?


“Santos now argues that its aim in CLNG was always as much about raising the domestic gas price, and therefore re-rating large parts of the portfolio outside of GLNG, as it was about the project…….What is more, with a ~0.8% drag on Australian GDP from every $2/GJ rise in the domestic gas price, this view certainly wouldn’t have been terribly popular with politicians who approved the project. [Credit Suisse, Asia Pacific/Australia Equity Research: Santos, 11 March 2014]

The reality for Australian householders is that on on average gas cost the same or more than electricity by 2012.

After managing to artificial inflate the domestic price of gas still further and wanting to reserve as much LNG as possible for the larger export market, now the Australian gas industry is crying shortages in order to blackmail state governments into opening up more conventional and unconventional gas fields across rural and regional Australia.

The fact of the matter is that since at least 1975 domestic energy consumption has been lower than energy production and export, while current gas domestic consumption remains significantly lower that current gas production.

According to the Australian Dept. of Industry, Innovation and Science’s Australian Energy Update 2016:

Natural gas production rose by 5 per cent in 2014–15 to 2,607 petajoules (66 billion cubic metres). Western Australia remained Australia’s largest producer of natural gas, producing nearly two-thirds of total gas production in 2014–15. Queensland production grew 45 per cent to become Australia’s second largest producer, overtaking Victoria, where production fell by 11 per cent. Production of coal seam gas increased by 50 per cent in 2014–15, to reach 462 petajoules (12 billion cubic metres), as new wells were drilled in Queensland to support the start of LNG exports from Gladstone. Coal seam gas accounted for 18 per cent of Australian gas production on an energy content basis, and nearly half of east coast gas production.

This Australia Institute graph makes the relationship between 2016 gas production and domestic consumption levels clearer:

Graph retrieved from Twitter

So why the alleged gas shortage?

The gas industry in Australia ignored signs that domestic gas consumption would rise and, in an excess of greed made commitments to export markets which appear to have been predicated on the assumption that it would be able to easily and profitably make up the competitive squeeze between domestic need, client country needs and its own commercial aims - because it would still be allowed open slather to drill or frack every available square kilometre of land with gas reserves beneath it.

This can all be explained in one sentence. The gas industry has been deliberately manipulating and starving the domestic market for years.

Mainstream media is finally looking at this problem a little more closely and explaining how businesses and consumers are being played for fools.

The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 March 2017:

Let's be clear: there is no gas shortage. Not in Australia, and not around the world. In fact, there's the opposite: a global glut of the stuff. BHP has already admitted there's enough gas in Bass Strait to supply the east coast "indefinitely". And globally, by the end of 2015 the gas industry was capable of producing about 25 per cent more liquefied gas than the world wanted to import.

By 2020, production capacity looks set to increase another 30 per cent. Even if demand is increasing – and that's not absolutely clear – it's not keeping pace with that. The world's biggest importer, Japan, has been reducing its demand for several years, and according to its own government, will be buying 30 per cent less gas by 2030 as it turns its focus to renewables….

So it was all very encouraging to hear Turnbull boasting this week about the size of his constitutional stick. "We have a responsibility – which we do not shirk from"; the industry understands the gravity of its "social licence" to operate. Et cetera. But the government has steadfastly refused to use that stick previously. And when you have gas companies slugging Australians record prices while charging their Asian customers record low prices, it's a little hard to believe they stay awake at night worrying about the terms of their "social licence".

What's much easier to believe, though, is that the gas industry is desperate to get its hands on gas supplies that are off limits – especially controversial ones like, say, coal seam gas. And if they have to offer a little more domestic supply to do it – at a time when global demand is slowing anyway – then it's hardly a sacrifice. Oh, and as it happens, that's exactly what Turnbull would like to offer them, hence his condemnation of the states' bans on further gas extraction.

It's a neat trick, really. Take a country with enough gas to supply itself "indefinitely", send the vast majority of it overseas, refuse to sell locally at a fair price, create a domestic shortage, then demand access to some of our most environmentally sensitive resources as though it's an emergency measure.
The Australian, 18 March 2017:
According to a report compiled by Energy Edge, the $US18.5 billion ($24.1bn) Gladstone LNG project, run by Santos, has at times been buying the equivalent of up to half of the whole east coast’s energy demand to meet a shortfall of gas to put through its two LNG production trains.
It is little wonder then that high up in the gentlemen’s agreement struck on Wednesday were commitments to supply, rather than deplete, domestic gas markets.
It is also clear that only two of the three Gladstone projects could agree to being net domestic gas contributors “as part of their social licence”.
The GLNG project has had to “take the matter on notice”, the agreement said.
The other two LNG projects — Queensland Curtis LNG run by Shell and Australia Pacific LNG run by Origin Energy and ConocoPhillips — have been consistently providing gas to the market (and GLNG, sometimes) on top of their export commitments.
“QCLNG and APLNG are currently either net long or balanced to the market, whereas GLNG is significantly short on equity supplies and must rely on third-party contracts,” Energy Edge said.
That was known by most observers.
But, using a range of public sources, Energy Edge says GLNG has sometimes bought a staggering 500-600 terajoules a day of gas on top of its own production.
Illustrating how substantial that volume is, the combined domestic demand from the pipeline-connected eastern states of Queensland, NSW, Victoria and Tasmania is about 1250 terajoules a day.
GLNG appears to already be averaging the use of about 300-400 terajoules a day of third-party gas — that is, gas outside the coal-seam gasfields it has developed specifically to feed its LNG project — for its LNG export.
With APLNG and QCLNG ­already fulfilling the demand, any short-term change will need to come from Santos and its GLNG partners Total and Kogas, although it might pay the rest of the industry to somehow provide some assistance.
After the meeting, Santos chief executive Kevin Gallagher, who was brought in last year to fix the problems, would not comment on exactly what the GLNG response could be.
“As an Australian company that has supplied the domestic market since its inception, we look forward to working with and supporting the government on this issue,” Mr Gallagher said.
“We are committed to working across all of our joint ventures to free up gas as well as continue to identify and develop new resources for the domestic market.”
As recently as December, at the company’s investor day, Mr Gallagher said the aim was to ramp up GLNG volumes to fill 6 million tonnes of the plant’s 7.8 million tonnes of annual LNG export capacity.
This could be potentially expanded by offering tolling services to other Australian gas producers who might want to export their gas but didn’t have the facilities, he said.
Enthusiasm for toll-treating has probably eased off in the wake of the meeting with Mr Turnbull and the current alarm around contract prices that Australian Competition & Consumer Commission chairman Rod Sims said this week “are apparently being offered at $20 a gigajoule, if they receive supply offers at all”.
East coast gas contract prices were $3 to $4 per gigajoule before the export plants were committed to and are said to now average $8 to $10, except in extreme cases.
The $70bn worth of Gladstone gas freezers and associated coal-seam gas wells have rapidly tripled east coast gas demand and opened the market up to international buyers.
This has ended an era of cheap Australian domestic gas supply, although the industry says this would have happened anyway because the cost of developing required resources was rising.
But the expected price hike has been exacerbated and come with shortages thanks to external factors and industry and government missteps, many of them flagged by observers before they were committed to.
Despite calls for industry to collaborate, three separate, almost identical plants were approved by Queensland and federal governments and, from 2010, built by the gas industry on Curtis Island.
This resulted in increased capital costs because infrastructure was not shared, cost blowouts as the remote construction market heated up and the building of six LNG production trains when the associated coal-seam gasfields could only really supply enough fuel for five.
To achieve efficiencies of scale, GLNG built two trains when it only had enough gas to comfortably fill one, admitting it would need to buy an unspecified amount of third-party gas to fill the second train.
After this, much that could go wrong has gone wrong.
Oil prices crashed, robbing gas developers of cash flow and investor funds that would have been used for extra LNG-related and domestic gas development, while community opposition to onshore gas production grew, resulting in bans or restrictions on new development in NSW, Victoria and now the Northern Territory.
At the same time, coal-seam gas resources did not perform as well as hoped at some Santos GLNG grounds, Santos’s Narrabri project in NSW (which was also hit by community opposition) and at the Bowen Basin ground of the Arrow joint venture between Shell and PetroChina.
It is not clear what the options are for GLNG, but Credit Suisse analyst Mark Samter has made repeated calls for it to close down one of its two trains — something Mr Gallagher ruled out last year.
Now an incredibly rich Liberal Party politician heading a Liberal-Nationals federal government – who was a failure as Minister for the Environment and Water, an abject failure as Minister for Communications and is a profound disappointment as Prime Minister of Australia – expects voters to believe that there is a genuine gas supply emergency which will leave local families and businesses going without unless the states allow indiscriminate gas mining.

Saturday 4 March 2017

SE Queensland: a social, economic and environmental tragedy unfolded


 @JoJamesHolden Industrialisation of SE Queensland - gasfield growth

Sunday 13 November 2016

Australian natural gas lobby groups caught lathering up the soft soap



The Guardian, 9 November 2016:

A coalition of natural gas lobby groups are planning a coordinated campaign to convince Australians gas is “a long-term necessity”, top industry lobbyists have revealed.

They also disclosed plans to undermine government attempts to regulate sections of the industry that have been identified by the competition watchdog for price gouging by offering the federal environment minister “something he can announce” – but which would not amount to regulation.

The president of the Australian Pipeline and Gas Association, Shaun Reardon, told a meeting of the gas industry in Perth last month that the industry had agreed on a message to sell to the public, the industry website Energy News Bulletin reported.

“Our objective is to have gas acknowledged as a long-term necessity by policymakers and the public,” Reardon was reported as saying.

The chief executive of gas association, Cheryl Cartwright, told Guardian Australia that representatives of each of the industry lobby groups had “agreed to a united view regarding gas”.
Cartwright said the industry needed to “improve the public perception of natural gas”.

“Basically, we represent the gas industry,” she said. “Natural gas is an important part of the energy mix as we encourage Australia to reduce carbon emissions. It’s cleaner burning than coal, and is an appropriate back-up fuel for renewable energy sources.”

A report released last month found unmeasured “fugitive emissions” from the gas industry were likely to be as big as those emitted by the entire transport sector. Since fugitive emissions are rarely measured, they are not properly accounted for, and could jeopardise any attempt to meet emissions reduction pledges made in Paris.

If fugitive emissions from the coal seam gas industry in Australia were anywhere near what they are in the US, coal seam gas would be worse for the climate than coal.

Cartwright said the industry should fight attempts to regulate gas pipelines. In April the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission found evidence that “a large number of pipeline operators have been engaging in monopoly pricing”.

The ACCC pointed out that other countries, such as New Zealand and the US, imposed much stronger regulation. Since pipelines are natural monopolies, they are able to dictate prices.
“It is well recognised in these jurisdictions that pipelines can wield substantial market power even where producers and users have a number of transportation options,” the ACCC said.

Cartwright told the conference the federal minister for the environment and energy, Josh Frydenberg, had told her he wanted to regulate gas pipelines.

“Minister Frydenberg actually said to me, quote, ‘I know supply needs to be addressed but we’re going to fix pipelines first,’’’ Cartwright was reported saying in Energy News Bulletin.

“Basically, they are convinced there is something wrong and they want to be able to make an announcement,” Cartwright reportedly said.

Cartwright told the gas industry meeting they needed to give Frydenberg “something to announce”.

“So this is what we are up against,” she said. “Not only do we need to fight back, we have to do it in a way that gives them something to announce and actually I think we can do it.”…..

Thursday 10 November 2016

The Bentley Effect showing at Yamba Cinema, 6.30pm Saturday 19 November 2016


After drilling fifty wells under the radar, in 2010 the CSG industry arrived unannounced, to drill an exploratory well in the peaceful Keerrong Valley in the Northern Rivers. A group of concerned neighbours investigated and alarm bells rang out across the region as the community’s immune system was triggered- the sleeping dragon was awoken.

A trickle of environmentalists and local farmers soon grew to a torrent of concerned citizens from all walks of life - business people, activists, grandmothers, teachers, musicians, nurses, local indigenous mob – and through this unlikely alliance, a wide-scale social movement was born.

Following a series of increasingly dramatic blockades, Metgasco, an unconventional gas exploration company, threw down the gauntlet. They announced their plans to commence drilling a “conventional gas” well on a farmland property in Bentley, a peaceful stretch of country, just 12 minutes’ drive from the township of Lismore.

The community’s response has now become the stuff of legends. From out of this cow paddock rose a highly organised, self-governing tent city – complete with meeting halls, kitchens, cafes, toilets, nurseries and strict codes of non-violent conduct. But with an undertaking of this scale, and in such an energy-charged environment, conflict and drama was inevitable, and there were many challenges as strong personalities clashed, cultures collided and emotional strains were pulled to breaking point.

Labelled by the government as ‘radical extremists’, these people, however, were not your usual suspects. Here at Bentley stood an army of mainly once conservative, every-day Australians uniting with their entire community to fend off the mining threat and protect their land, air and water. They felt they had no choice.

The bravest locked themselves onto cement fixtures blocking the way into the site. Each morning they gathered before dawn at ‘Gate A’ to rally together, set themselves to the tasks of the day and sing the songs that would become their protest anthems. High-profile musicians gave regular pop-up concerts to the delight of the campers, “Simmos” and day-trippers alike. Metgasco and their political supporters rallied too and a growing police force waited in Lismore for orders to break up the blockade. A daily sms message was sent out with the latest intelligence and the community showed up in droves, time and time again, to face the music. The stage was set and over 850 riot police with horses were on standby in Sydney, with orders to remove the protectors.

Told through the eyes of the protectors over a four-year period and intercut with fresh insight from some of the world’s leading social commentators, this now famous standoff at Bentley forces us to ask the question- what is truly valuable?
[https://www.facebook.com/thebentleyeffectmovie]

THE BENTLEY EFFECT - one screening only
Q&A after movie
DATE: Saturday 19 November 2016
TIME: 6.30pm
TICKET COST: $20 & $10 for children under 12 years - on sale now
VENUE: Yamba Cinema
13 Coldstream St,
Yamba NSW 2464
PH: (02) 6646 3430

Saturday 23 July 2016

New Politics in the Pub, Court House Hotel in Mullumbimby, Wednesday 27 July 2016 from 6.30pm


Echo NetDaily, 20 July 2016:

NSW Council for Civil Liberties (CCL) president will be guest speaker at New Politics in the Pub on Wednesday July 27 from 6.30pm at the Court House Hotel in Mullumbimby.

The topic of discussion by president Stephen Blanks will be the recently introduced anti-protest laws by the Baird Liberal/Nationals government that radically extends police powers against opponents of mining projects and heavily fines those who ‘lock on’ to mining equipment.

It’s called Inclosed Lands, Crimes and Law Enforcement Legislation Amendment (Interference) Act 2016 and only passed with votes from two crossbench parties: the Shooters and Fishers Party and Fred Nile’s Christian Democratic Party.

The law immediately sparked protests in front of parliament house, and has reverberated throughout the state.

It is also considered the result of the close relationship that exists between Liberal and National Party politicians, their staff and the mining industry.

If this law existed at the Bentley Blockade near Lismore in 2014, neighbouring farmers and residents could have been arrested as they ‘locked on’ to the equipment.

This was owing to the government’s inaction to intervene over the known toxicity that accompanies CSG mining, and its potential to poison aquifers. Land values are also known to plummet.

The laws have been described by lawyers and as an assault on democracy and a civil society.

According to The Law Society, the law would, ‘seriously interfere with the liberties of NSW residents.’…..

See:  INCLOSED LANDS, CRIMES AND LAW ENFORCEMENT LEGISLATION AMENDMENT (INTERFERENCE) ACT 2016 at 

Thursday 7 July 2016

QLD Western Downs Alliance takes Turnbull Government to court over requirement to consider water trigger legislation



Western Downs Alliance v Minister for the Environment & Santos Limited

We are acting for Western Downs Alliance in its challenge to a decision by the Federal Minister for the Environment to approve the Santos GLNG Gas Field Development Project in Queensland.  

This is the first CSG case brought under national environmental laws to challenge the application of the Water Trigger, and is an important test case.

The Minister’s approval allows Santos to develop 6,100 coal seam gas (CSG) wells across approximately 1 million hectares of land in the Surat Basin in South-Central Queensland. This represents a substantial expansion on the 2,650 CSG wells approved for an overlapping (but significantly smaller) area in 2010.

Over the project’s predicted life of more than 30 years, Santos is proposing to extract up to 219 billion litres of water, with potential impacts on the Great Artesian Basin. The Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the project outlines proposed methods of managing the extracted water, one of which is to release water from the wells into surface water systems such as rivers and lakes.

Western Downs Alliance argues that the approval of the project was unlawful because the Minister did not properly assess the project’s impacts on surface water.

The EIS notes that the project is likely to have a number of surface water impacts, including:

* increased sedimentation;
* erosion of stream banks;
* surface water contamination, including toxicity to aquatic ecosystems; and
* altered surface water flow.

In November 2014, the Independent Expert Scientific Committee, which was set up in 2012 to provide scientific advice to decision makers on the impact that coal seam gas and large coal mining development may have on Australia's water resources, advised the Minister that there is ‘considerable scientific uncertainty about potential impacts [of this project] on surface water and groundwater and associated ecosystems’. The Committee specifically stated that the potential impacts of discharging water into the Dawson River, including ecological impacts, should be assessed.

This case raises the question of what is required of the Minister under the ‘Water Trigger’, which was added in 2013 as a ‘matter of national environmental significance’ to Australia’s national environmental law, the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 (EPBC Act). Under the Water Trigger, any proposed CSG development that has, will have, or is likely to have a significant impact on a water resource requires comprehensive assessment and approval at a national level by the Minister under the EPBC Act.

Western Downs Alliance argues that the Minister incorrectly formed the view that it was not necessary to assess the impacts of releasing CSG water to surface waters as part of the project approval, and that as a result the approval was unlawful.

The case has been listed for a case management hearing in the New South Wales Registry of the Federal Court of Australia on 27 June 2016.

We are grateful to barristers Geoffrey Kennett SC and Ashley Stafford for their assistance in this matter.

To stay in touch with news on this case and our other cases, sign up to our weekly eBulletin.

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Monday 16 May 2016

Baird Government backs down after being sprung promoting NSW Northern Rivers region as having potential commercial opportunities for overseas CSG miners - but can this government be believed?


The Australian on 6 February 2016 raised a red flag when it reported:

The NSW government will ­release new areas of the state to gas exploration, with Aboriginal land councils getting priority to claim the leases following the ­decision of AGL to withdraw from coal-seam gas exploration and production.

The Baird government has bought back leases covering large parts of the state following strong opposition to coal-seam gas, hoping that two major companies, AGL and Santos, could develop coal-seam projects and demonstrate they could be built without environmental damage……

On 2 May 2016 a North Coast Voices post pointed out that NSW Nationals MP for Clarence and NSW Parliamentary Secretary for the North Coast, Chris Gulaptis, had endorsed the Baird Government's North Coast Regional Plan which included this statement:

The North Coast also includes areas of the Clarence-Moreton Basin, which has potential coal seam gas resources that may be able to support the development and growth of new industries and provide economic benefits for the region….

By 11 May local concern had grown when The Sydney Morning Herald reported:

The state government has been selling northern NSW to foreign mining investors as having "very good potential" for coal seam gas exploration, while local voters were told the practice had been stopped, documents show.
NSW is also being spruiked as a "greenfields opportunity" with "known potential" for uranium exploration, even in the farming region of New England.
The revelations threaten to bring the politically charged issue of mining back into prominence across a string of regional marginal seats, months after the government moved to neutralise the issue and stem a major backlash from Nationals voters.
The marketing material was prepared by NSW Trade and Investment bureaucrats and presented in March to a Toronto conference of more than 20,000 mining investors from more than 100 countries.
"The Clarence-Morton basin has very good petroleum potential," investors were told of a 16,000 square kilometre region in the state's northern rivers. "Almost all wells drilled … have yielded gas and/or oil".

That same day the NSW Dept. of Industry tried to close the door after the horse had bolted by stating in The Australian that the promotional material presented at the international conference had been withdrawn:

"The Clarence-Moreton Basin has very good petroleum potential for the production of hydrocarbons," the document said.
"The potential for commercial opportunities" within the basin was highlighted by a recent discovery, it said.
AAP understands the material was presented to mining investors at an international trade conference in Toronto earlier this year.
The documents also spruiked the "significant potential" for uranium exploration in Broken Hill and Lachlan in the state's central west, and in the New England region further north.
In a statement on Wednesday, the Department of Industry said it had withdrawn the promotional material.

However this description of the promotional material was still easily found in the cache of the NSW Dept of Industry, Resources and Energy website on 12 May 2016:

XplorPak 2016 – showcasing NSW to international investors

11th February 2016
The Geological Survey of NSW team has finalised its annual Explorers Directory and renamed it XplorPak 2016.
As part of the rebranding, the product has been significantly upgraded with a modern, user-friendly interface and a fully redesigned image.
The package provides information on mineral, geothermal, coal and petroleum exploration and production in NSW, with links and data to help prospective explorers and other stakeholders.
XplorPak 2016 will be released at PDAC, Toronto, Canada, in early March 2016.
It is a free product and is available by contacting geoscience.products@industry.nsw.gov.au [my red bolding]

In the Echo NetDaily on 12 May 2016 Janelle Saffin, Labor candidate in the Page electorate which saw a decade of coal seam gas exploration and accompanying sustained community resistance, expressed the opinions of many:

Ms Saffin was blunt, saying the revelation despite the denial had ‘left the Nationals credentials in tatters’ and they ‘could no longer pretend that they supported a CSG-free region, when they have a state Nationals minister’s department promoting our area to investors to mine CSG’.
‘This comes on top of their state planning document that mapped and marked the northern rivers area as a CSG mining zone,’ she said.
‘It seems they are just biding their time believing that they can have CSG mining happen here, at some stage, the Nationals have been caught red handed – saying one thing but doing something completely different,’ Ms Saffin said…..
Ms Saffin said ‘no spin can cover up this deception. You simply can’t just say oh sorry, I overlooked the State Planning documents and now a international investor document and have us believe you support a CSG-free region’.
‘Both documents support the development of new CSG mines,’ she said.

As did Gasfields Free Northern Rivers spokesperson Elly Bird in The Daily Examiner online issue of that day:

Outraged by the NSW Governments actions, Gasfield Free Northern Rivers regional coordinator Elly Bird has said The Nationals are either lying to the community or they were kept in the dark as to the governments true intentions.
"First we see references to CSG in the Draft North Coast Regional Plan and now this news that the Department of Trade is still promoting our region as open for business for CSG,
"It's absolutely outrageous that this government is acting one way and speaking another way. Our National Party MPs are falling all over themselves promising that we are protected when it is becoming more and more obvious that the truth is the complete opposite,
"Our community will not stand for it. What sort of fools do they take the people of the Northern Rivers to be? It's obvious that the National Party cannot be trusted to tell us the truth," Ms Bird said.

In The Daily Examiner on 12 and 13 May 2016 Nationals MP for Page Kevin Hogan attempted what seemed almost half-hearted damage control:

Federal Member for Page, Kevin Hogan has defended his state colleagues and commended their action on CSG.
"I think the man and woman on the street in our community know that CSG is dead and buried," Mr Hogan said. "I think the government has shown the commitment to that with the buyback of the licences, obviously this is just bureaucrats who need to keep up.

But then Hogan belongs to an Abbott-Turnbull federal government which made its wishes clear within nine days of being sworn-in:

The Federal Government says it is intervening to fast-track coal seam gas (CSG) projects in New South Wales in response to the state's "gas crisis".
Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane has warned that thousands of jobs could be lost and gas prices could spike in the state if moves are not taken to unlock CSG reserves.
Speaking at an "energy security summit" of gas industry stakeholders in Sydney on Thursday, he said he wanted to see more CSG rigs in place "by Christmas".
He said he had spoken to Liberal Premier Barry O'Farrell about ways to overcome resistance to CSG drilling from farmers and other landowners.

And continues to support gas industry aims as this 13 April 2016 report in Business News (WA) clearly demonstrates:


The question for Northern Rivers residents is; Can the Baird and Turnbull Governments be trusted to keep the region gasfield free?

Tuesday 15 March 2016

Am I being cynical in suspecting that the Liberal and Nationals parties are looking to the mining industry for political donations in this 2016 federal election year?


Am I being cynical in suspecting that the Liberal and Nationals parties are looking to the mining industry for political donations in 2016?

I cannot know the answer for certain as there is no real time reporting of political donations in Australia.

However, the timing of these moves by the Baird Government looks suspiciously like the Coalition has gone a-courting.


Penalties of just $5000 could be issued to coal seam gas companies who explore or mine without permission instead of a potential $1.1 million fine under changes introduced by the Baird government.
As energy minister Anthony Roberts unveiled plans to clamp down on anti-coal seam gas protesters, the government has ushered in smaller alternative penalties to court prosecution for a range of offences.
For example, mining without authority - currently a $1.1 million fine plus $110,000 per day for a company if successfully prosecuted in court - can now be punished with a $5000 penalty notice.
Prospecting without authority - currently a $550,000 fine and $55,000 per day under a prosecution - may now be dealt with via a $5000 penalty notice.
Failure to provide information and records to an inspector - currently a $1.1 million fine  and $110,000 a day under a prosecution - is now punishable with a $5000 penalty notice……
On Monday, Mr Roberts unveiled proposed laws giving police additional powers "to deal with people who intend to 'lock-on' to equipment", and authority to move people on in all protest activities.
Sue Higginson, principal solicitor with Environmental Defenders Office NSW, said they are an over-reach and the current laws have been applied successfully for many years.
"The proposed increase to police powers appears to be unnecessary and in part a substantial intrusion on civil liberties," Ms Higginson said.
The timing of the new laws was "like waving a red rag to a bull," she said.
"The legality of the CSG activities of Santos in the Pilliga is currently being questioned in the NSW Courts, along with the actions of the Department of Industry," Ms Higginson said, noting the Land and Environment Court will begin hearings on a legal challenge against Santos on April 6……

Meanwhile in the NSW Upper House the Greens Jeremy Buckingham continues his battle of many years:

356. Mr Buckingham to move— That leave be given to bring in a bill for an Act to prohibit exploration for and mining of minerals and petroleum in the Liverpool Plains and certain land within the Hunter Valley; and for other purposes. (Mining Control (Protect Liverpool Plains and Hunter Critical Industry Clusters) Bill) (Notice given 27 August 2015)

425. Mr Buckingham to move— 1. That this House notes that: (a) there are currently no insurance providers available to farmers in New South Wales who provide a product to insure against potential Coal Seam Gas (CSG) contamination, (b) leading environmental insurance specialist Anthony Saunders has today told the Land Newspaper that the risk of contamination from CSG activities in New South Wales cannot be insured because “no insurance company wants to be responsible for a future claim that is quite likely”, and (c) he has also said that “if future financial loss of the landholder as a result of CSG mining 300 kilometres away is uninsurable, then the activities of the CSG company could be considered as reckless”. 2. That this House calls on the Government to explain how coal seam gas drilling can be legal in New South Wales when there is no insurance cover available for farmers to cover the process. (Notice given 17 September 2015—expires Notice Paper No. 45)

438. Mr Buckingham to move— 1. That this House notes that AGL has spent the past 18 months trying to prevent the release of a 2013 site visit report from the Environmental Protection Authority examining AGL’s Hunter coal seam gas fields.
2. That this House notes that this report reveals routine and systemic failures in AGL’s management of its coal seam gas (CSG) wells including:
(a) 212 tonnes of AGL’s CSG waste being transported to a non-licenced facility, Bettergrow,
(b) the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) expressing concern that AGL “is not ensuring that drilling waste at the site is being disposed in an environmentally friendly and proper manner”,
(c) a completely inadequate and unreliable groundwater monitoring program which included:
(i) inadequate information about how samples were collected,
(ii) no information on the special precautions necessary for taking samples for trace contaminant groundwater sampling,
(iii) not taking the necessary precautions to prevent contamination of samples during groundwater sampling,
(iv) limited data on quality control,
(v) using unreliable house methods to analysing samples, (vi) inadequate monitoring of dissolved metals,
(d) significant well integrity issues including at least five breaches of the Well Integrity Code of Practice and two breaches of AGL’s Environmental Management Plan for CSG activities despite the EPA noting that “if the cementing process is not undertaken properly, liquids from aquifers and gas may migrate and cause inter aquifer connectivity and pollution of groundwater.”, including:
(i) a core hole left without a casing for two months,
(ii) using the wrong cement in a well,
(iii) potential leaching of heavy metals in the fly ash to groundwater,
(iv) no placement of temporary plugs in a perforated well, even though this “provides a pathway for highly saline formation water from with the coal seams to migrate within the casing”,
(v) samples of cement slurry not being kept for the duration of the well as required,
(vi) no information available on the integrity of cement bonds, (vii) no laboratory tests of the cement slurry undertaken as required,
(viii) no cement bond log carried out for two wells “to ensure that the cement bond provided an effective barrier to prevent any interaction between aquifers” as required,
(e) no monitoring of potential gas leaks,
(f) drill pads not being maintained properly,
(g) no dust suppression controls in place,
(h) breaches of their Soil and Water Management plan including no monitoring of run off estimates or sediment controls for major storm events,
(i) spills or leaks of liquids onto drill pads, (j) inadequate storage and no secondary containment of drilling fluids and chemicals, which led the EPA to note their concern that “spills or leaks could potentially pollute groundwater”, and
(k) no high level overflow or low level alarm on the mud tank, contrary to international best practice. (Notice given 13 October 2015—expires Notice Paper No. 46)

509. Mr Buckingham to move— That leave be given to bring in a bill for an Act to prohibit the grant, renewal or modification of authorisations and titles that permit exploration for and mining of minerals and petroleum (including coal seam gas) in Central Coast water catchment areas. (Central Coast Water Catchments Protection Bill) (Notice given 28 October 2015)

579. Mr Buckingham to move— 1. That this House notes that:
(a) Gloucester Council today passed a motion 6-1, put by the Mayor, Councillor Rosenbaum, which read as follows: “That Council write to the Premier and Minister Roberts requesting negotiations be commenced with AGL to buy back the Licence for the following reasons.
* the social fabric of the Gloucester community is suffering
* mental health issues and trust.”, and
(b) the background to the motion by Councillor Rosenbaum notes that: “Ethically, I am asking the Government for understanding of my great concern for our community after the death by suicide of farmer George Bender, in Chinchilla, Queensland. Morally, our Council cannot sit back and ignore the fact of the effects this is having on our people. One life lost is too many - this could happen here, this is real not a perception. The wellbeing of our people is suffering and the mental health and other issues too many to mention; the length of time has been too long.”
2. That this House calls on the Premier and the Minister for Resources and Energy to respect the wishes of the Gloucester Council and community and immediately commence negotiations to buy back AGL’s Coal Seam Gas licence. (Notice given 18 November 2015—expires Notice Paper No. 59)

603. Mr Buckingham to move— 1. That this House notes that on 4 February 2016, AGL Energy announced that it will no longer be involved in coal seam gas in New South Wales or Queensland, handing back its licence for the Gloucester Gas Project, and flagging that production will cease at its Camden Gas Project in 2023, 12 years earlier than expected.
2. That this House congratulates:
(a) the people of Gloucester and Camden, for their passionate and well organised efforts to protect their land and water, and
(b) AGL, for their decision to pull out of coal seam gas and to set up a $2 million legacy fund to assist the town of Gloucester to grow sustainably. (Notice given 23 February 2016—expires Notice Paper No. 61)

Saturday 16 May 2015

Want to know how responsible the NSW North Coast Member for Page is for our economic, environmental & social predicament?


It would appear that Kevin Hogan is your run-of-the-mill hypocrite.

This is how Nationals MP for Page for the NSW North Coast finally presented himself to the electorate up to May 2015:

FEDERAL Member for Page Kevin Hogan has told Federal Parliament how a visit to the coal seam gas mining fields in Chinchilla convinced him to continue his opposition to CSG in the Clarence Valley.
On Thursday Mr Hogan addressed Federal Parliament about his concerns about the impact of CSG mining in his electorate.
He said he came to the conclusion that CSG was inappropriate for Page after he visited Chinchilla in Queensland in January 2013 to speak with community members about the impact of the industry there.
"I tried to envisage what the industry would look like in my region," he said.
"I could not see how the industry could work without being extremely invasive given the nature of our topography and small land owning. It would be exceptionally detrimental to neighbouring properties."....

* This is how the member for the federal seat of  Page, Nationals MP actually voted on key issues since 2006, according to Open Australia:

*Voted very strongly against a carbon price. votes
*Voted moderately against increasing scrutiny of asylum seeker management. votes
*Voted very strongly against increasing trade unions' powers in the workplace. votes
*Voted moderately against implementing refugee and protection conventions. votes
*Voted moderately for temporary protection visas. votes
*Voted very strongly for increasing or removing the debt limit. votes
*Voted very strongly against a minerals resource rent tax . votes
*Voted very strongly against increasing protection of Australia's fresh water. votes
*Voted strongly for regional processing of asylum seekers. votes
*Voted very strongly against increasing marine conservation. votes
*Voted very strongly for unconventional gas mining. votes
*Voted very strongly against restricting foreign ownership. votes
*Voted very strongly against increasing investment in renewable energy. votes
*Voted very strongly for privatising government assets. votes
*Voted very strongly against increasing funding for university education. votes
*Voted very strongly for increasing the price of subsidised medicine. votes
*Voted very strongly against increasing the age pension. votes
*Voted very strongly for decreasing availability of welfare payments. votes
*Voted very strongly for an emissions reduction fund. votes
*Voted very strongly for increasing funding for road infrastructure. votes
*Voted very strongly for decreasing ABC and SBS funding. votes [my red bolding{

Never rebels against their party in this parliament.

Friday 15 May 2015

AGL Energy Limited a supplier of gas & coal based electricity is behaving badly yet again


AGL Energy Limited (AGL) sells and markets gas and electricity. It owns a number thermal stations, has an operational gas plant in the Camden area and approvals for exploration and production of coal seam gas in the Gloucester district in New South Wales. 

On 11 May 2015 Smart Company reported that:
The Australian Energy Regulator has penalised energy retailer AGL for disconnecting customers in hardship or on payment plans, with AGL South Australia and AGL Sales both receiving a $20,000 fine from the regulator.
Energy retailers are prohibited from disconnecting customers under certain circumstances, including when they are participating in a hardship program or a payment plan.
However the Australian Energy Regulator said in a statement this morning, it was notified by AGL of incidents in which nine of the company’s customers were wrongfully disconnected from their electricity supply.

This is not the first time that AGL has been in the news for behaving badly.

A quick Internet search brings up this disturbing timeline: 

* August 2003


* September 2004


* July 2005


* August 2006


* May 2008


* May 2009

June 2008 AGL became our electricity provider. This surprised us when we received the first "Dear Customer" letter from them in November, attempting to bill us all the way back to February!
In fact, we had been contracted to Simply Energy (gas + elec) for over a year and owned the house for four years. Every AGL customer "service" person attempts to convince us we just moved in!
Of course we called AGL after getting the November letter (actually two bills for different amounts). The help desk woman apologised, said she could see the account had been transferred to them in error, and promised to send us back to Simply Energy. "No need to worry about it". Famous last words.
Come April 2009, and two more envelopes arrive from AGL. Amount owing is over $1,100, please pay within two weeks. An entire afternoon wasted calling AGL then Simply Energy then AGL (with SE on the line), then AGL again. Each time the recorded voice said we owed a different amount! In the first call, AGL told me to tell SE to check MSATS (their common database) for the handover date. SE said it was June but AGL was billing back to February! SE confirmed we'd paid up to June. All good so far.
AGL claims that because 130 days had passed without hearing from SE, they _own_ our account, under law. They could well be right, but surely SE would be due compensation? AGL checked their own records and could see that they had reminded themselves in November to ask SE for a "winback", but never actually sent the message to them.
To add to the insult, two days after those phonecalls we received a letter from AGL thanking us for agreeing to this payment plan during your phonecall. We did nothing of the sort! We laughed when we saw the "instalment plan" was one payment of the full amount including the months already paid, due in June.  Ta.
The good thing about dealing with AGL is that you get to read up on what your rights are. You can read the entire ombudsman's website while you're on hold! In Victoria, utilities can't backbill residents for more than nine months' worth of power, and have to give an equivalent time to pay if requested. The longer they take to work their stuff out, the more free electricity we have received.
The last time I called them was a week ago, because they'd promised to call me by then. The guy was a lot more candid about the extent of their problems, said their complaints department was VERY busy and while they would try to ring me in the next week he couldn't guarantee it. Meanwhile (after I pressed him to say it) we should ignore the demands for payment. So we're relaxed and waiting ... next step the ombudsman because there's no way they can get away with this.
 [Resolved in the customers favour after what appears to be almost twelve months of negotiation]


* May 2010

* September 2010


* May 2011

In May 2011 a large drilling fluid spill occurred at AGL’s CSG well head at Camden North in NSW during routine maintenance. According to STOP CSG!, AGL failed to report the incident for two days until the leakage was shown on TV

* September 2012


* 2012

AGL sent me a letter advising me that I had entered into a default contract with them because the electricity at that address was still being used despite the cancellation of the A/C. This puzzled me as I had not cancelled the contract with AGL. As requested I phoned the number listed in their letter. At the outset of the conversation with AGL I was required to identify myself by giving my name and DOB. When I asked who had cancelled my A/C, my request was denied on the grounds of privacy regulations. My response to this was that my privacy had been violated when a third party had been allowed to cancel my account with AGL. When my letter of complaint to the GM retail was not answered, a week later I sent an e-mail citing the issues raised .This proved more effective because Customer Relations then contacted me. Their case is that the new tenant next door initially gave the street number of my holiday house, later phoning to correct his error. If the tenant had made this correction before the letter about a default contract had been written, then the issue of a default contract is in my opinion a red herring. Instead AGL should have come clean with me. Alternatively if the tenant had not yet alerted AGL to this debacle, there was no need to send a letter concerning electricity consumption at the address initially given by the new tenant next door. In summary, despite their claim to the contrary, I cannot accept that AGL can cancel an A/C without checking with the person who responsible for the A/C. Even for a simple enquiry a customer is required to identify themselves. Secondly I am not confident that the default letter was written in good faith. If AGL already knew about the source of the confusion at the time of writing to me , they should have been frank and open. XXXX XXXX Address in question-XX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX

* March 2013


* May 2013


* July 2013


* December 2013



* December 2014


* January 2015


* April 2015