North-West Shelf Oil and Gas in the Australian Energy Scene

A summary of the four papers given at a seminar at Macquarie University on "The North-West Shelf Oil and Gas in the Australian Energy Scene" is presented. Barnett compared the historical costs for platforms in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea, and compared these to published estimates for the North-West Shelf. He then argued that the Australian government should not give preferential tax treatment to oil producers and that establishing world parity pricing was sufficient incentive for the industry. Lodge discussed the engineering challenges and the cost of developing a gas field in such an isolated location as the North-West Shelf. Charlton outlined the marketing prospects for the North-West Shelf gas. He concluded that a pipeline across Australia was not an economic proposition and that a liquefied natural gas export scheme was the only economically sound alternative. Oldf ield asserted that a liquefied natural gas project to ship the gas to Sydney was not viable, but that a trans-Australia pipeline was.