APPEA: CSG Industry Employs 12,113 People (Australia)

The economic benefit of Australia’s burgeoning coal seam gas (CSG) sector was Wednesday presented to delegates at ABARES’ Outlook 2012 conference in Canberra.

The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association’s (APPEA) Chief Operating Officer – Eastern Region, Rick Wilkinson, released for the first time a range of 2011 industry statistics, which show:

• The CSG industry now employs 12,113 people;

• In Queensland alone, the CSG industry recruited 2,409 people in just the second half of 2011 (or 93 new people every week);

• In Queensland alone, the CSG industry last year committed capital investment at the rate of more than $30,000 per minute;

• CSG now supplies more than one third of Eastern Australia’s natural gas;

• In Queensland alone, the industry signed 398 access agreements with Queensland landholders in the last quarter of 2011 (or 4 agreements per day) and there are now 2459 such agreements in place;

• There is not one formal dispute of access between the CSG industry and a landholder in either NSW or QLD.

Mr Wilkinson said: “The Australian oil and gas industry is going through a period of unprecedented transformation and growth.

“Demand for clean, abundant, reliable, and affordable energy sources – both within Australia and throughout our region – is strong, and no-one expects it to wane in the foreseeable future.

“As a result, we have in just the past few years seen LNG projects worth in excess of $180 billion commence construction in Australia, with $46 billion worth of this being derived from Queensland CSG.

“As we continue to see jobs lost in the car-making, tourism, airline & manufacturing sectors, it is difficult to over-state the significance or importance of this investment, or the role it will play in shaping the Australian economy of the future.”

[mappress]
LNG World News Staff, March 12, 2012; Image: APPEA