QGC: Cost Outweighs Benefit with New Emissions Regulation (Australia)

QGC, a BG unit and the operator of the QCLNG project, estimates that proposed new Federal Government regulations to measure fugitive emissions from natural gas production from coal seams would cost at least A$30,000 a well and yield at most about A$2300 in carbon tax.

In its submission on the Government’s proposals, QGC Pty Limited, developer of the Queensland Curtis LNG Project at Gladstone, argues that the large costs outweigh any environment or government revenue gain.

The regulations, proposed in April 2013 and set to be introduced from July 2013, apply only to coal seam gas and are claimed to improve greenhouse gas measurements for calculating carbon tax.

Despite nearly a year of public consultation Australia-wide, the Government received only 17 submissions on its discussion paper, and gas companies were given a month to comment on the proposed regulations.

QGC’s submission argues that the Government’s justification for applying new regulations only to gas from coal seams is flawed because there is no specific difference in producing gas from coal seams or from any other gas reservoir.

It also argues that changes to measurement methods be made only after additional study by the CSIRO and that the Government not ignore its own independent advice to consider international best practice approaches to measuring emissions and to gradually assess whether it even has a problem.

[mappress]
LNG World News Staff, May 9, 2013