Australian Politics
Assange revealed truthful, newsworthy information’: Assange lawyer says
“The prosecution of Julian Assange is unprecedented in the 100 years of the Espionage Act, it has never been used by the United States to pursue a publisher, a journalist, like Mr Assange,” Assange’s US lawyer Barry Pollack said standing next to Assange’s UK and Australian counsel, Jennifer Robinson.
“Mr Assange revealed truthful, newsworthy information, including revealing that the United States had committed war crimes,” Pollack continued.
“He has suffered tremendously in his fight for free speech, for freedom of the press, and to ensure that the American public and the world community gets truthful and important newsworthy information.
“We firmly believe that Mr Assange never should have been charged under the Espionage Act and engaged in [an] exercise that journalists engage in everyday – and we are thankful that they do.”
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AEMO warns of immediate gas shortfall threat as cold snap, renewable lulls and outages bite
On Thursday morning, in an extraordinary step, the Australian Energy Market Operator issued a "risk or threat notice" for east coast gas supplies amid a looming shortfall of the fuel in southern states such as Victoria, New South Wales and South Australia.
The warning was sparked by a spike in gas demand following a cold spell, a lack of renewable power in recent weeks and an outage at the Longford gas plant in Victoria – the biggest source of gas in southern Australia.
Combined, the shocks to the system have led to a run on Victoria's most biggest and most important gas storage facility at Iona, about 230km south-west of Melbourne.
They have also sent the gas market skywards, with prices trading at almost $30 a gigajoule today – levels last seen during the energy crisis two years ago.
AEMO said the disruptions were of a "nature and magnitude" significant enough to threaten gas shortfalls on days of peak demand for the next three months or more.
"The likely duration of the identified risk or threat is from 19 June 2024 and is expected, on the basis of current information, to continue until no later than 30 September or as otherwise advised by AEMO," the agency said in a statement.
According to the market operator and industry observers, gas storage levels were being rapidly depleted as pressure came on to the system from all angles.
A recent run of cold weather has caused a spike in demand for gas for heating across many of the southern states.
At the same time, seasonal lulls in wind and solar output has led to a big increase in the amount of gas being burnt to produce electricity.
Meanwhile, AEMO noted, production at the Longford gas plant operated by US oil and gas giant ExxonMobil had been severely reduced because unplanned maintenance requirements.
This comes on top of the declining output from Longford, which ExxonMobil and its joint venture partner Woodside are planning to progressively shut down in the coming years as gas reserves in the Bass Strait fall away.
An Exxon spokesman said the outage at Longford was planned to allow maintenance to take place at the company's offshore facilities.
The spokesman said that work had been completed and the plant would be "resuming" its full operations over the coming days.
"Our team has worked hard to limit any impact on supplies to customers by increasing production from other offshore facilities while the restart progresses," the spokesman said.
"We expect to return to full rates by 1 July.
"As we have noted publicly for several years, having multiple supply sources across the domestic energy market is critical to ensure system reliability."
Shortfalls 'entirely predictable'
Rick Wilkinson, the chief executive of consultancy EnergyQuest, said the risk of shortfalls was worrying for gas users but ultimately predictable.
Mr Wilkinson said the security of Australia's east coast gas market had been getting worse for years as investment in new supplies dwindled.
"The lack of investment, and some would say outright hostility to gas industry investment in the southern states has left south-east Australia closer to gas supply shortfalls," Mr Wilkinson said.
"The margin for safety continues to be eroded.
"Today's gas market operator's notice of a gas system risk or threat for the southern states is the next real example of what is to come more regularly.
"We have lost the gas safety margin for reliable supply, and what we have been doing for the last five or more years has not worked to address the gas shortfalls — expected in 2028, and earlier for peak demand conditions as we are currently experiencing.
"This risk will get progressively worse as Longford gas fields deplete, and there is no investment in more gas supply, storage or other gas options such as LNG imports."
In its notice, AEMO foreshadowed it may need to take measures to prop up the supply of gas to the east coast market, where the fuel is used by millions of households and thousands of often major businesses.
Among those measures were requiring producers, pipeline operators, storage providers and other market players to take "reasonable steps" to ensure there was enough supply.
This could include producers in Queensland, where much of Australia's east coast gas supplies are turned into super-chilled liquid form and sent to North Asia on ships
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Victoria must consider the Exxon gas plan
ROBERT GOTTLIEBSEN
Many years ago, after I first published that Exxon was prepared to spend $100m to develop Victoria’s deep water dissolved gas in Gippsland, I was at a business function when a top Australian Exxon executive quietly took me aside and said: “Robert, you got your facts wrong in that article. We planned to spend $200m not $100m.”
Exxon’s enthusiasm for the deposit extended to doing a joint venture with BlueScope Steel which operates a steel rolling mill at nearby at Western Port Bay.
A company known as Ignite, through its wholly owned subsidiary Gippsland Gas had spent some millions researching the deposit and earlier Exxon data. Exxon on examining the results, combined with Gippsland Gas to put the $200m proposal to the 2014 Victorian Coalition government.
The Premier faced with making the 2014 decision was the Liberal’s Denis Napthine but in matters like this the Premier was greatly influenced by his Deputy Premier and leader of the Nationals Peter Ryan.who was also the member for South Gippsland.
Ryan feared any development of onshore gas would frighten farmers who did not want gas development and believed (incorrectly) it would require the fracking process to extract the gas. Napthine blocked Exxon, Gippsland Gas and BlueScope.
Daniel Andrews became Premier in December 2014 and continued the ban and made it very clear to Exxon that he would attempt to stop any drilling and, if he failed Exxon would not be given a production licence.
The giant multinational has oil and gas prospects around the world and had no interest fighting an Australian state government. It backed out. And because the original ban decision had been made by the coalition of Liberals and Nationals, the Victorian Opposition was reluctant to make it a major issue.
Ten years have passed and there has been no detailed drilling.
The $200m Exxon development plan of 2014 first required wells to be drilled to determine permeability. If those wells failed then obviously Exxon would have considered walking away.
Its $200m plan involved bringing the fields to full development stage and of course proving the extent of the gas reserves.
Given the Victorian government headed by Daniel Andrews spent $42m concealing any gas reserves and was adamant they should not be developed, no one in their right mind would spend money to prove or disprove the initial estimates provided by one of the world’s greatest gas reserve estimators, MHA Petroleum Consultants, (now part of the giant Sproule group).
Those suggesting that MHA Petroleum would publish estimates of gas as part of a marketing exercise don’t understand the traditions of both MHA and Sproule.
With Bass Strait gas now running out and the Victorian government in a mess, it’s time for the Australian Energy Market Operator to step in and review the MHA calculations and the 2014 Exxon plan.
The first step in any intervention must of course be to alert the community to the looming crisis but there is no point in continuing to do that when the first obvious solution – the 2014 Exxon plan – is gathering dust in the files.
The looming gas crisis is so serious that current Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen and her deputy Ben Carroll need to combine and take personal charge.
They should review the 2014 Exxon plan and perhaps raise a small amount of money to drill a few wells – the first stage of the plan.
If the gas flows as it has in earlier wells, then it will be possible for Victoria to do a lucrative deal. It certainly needs help.
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Feds approve gas expansion plans
Senex Energy, owned by Australian billionaire Gina Rinehart and South Korean steel maker Posco International, has been given the go-ahead for its $1 billion plan to expand its gas fields near Wandoan, about 400 kilometres north-west of Brisbane.
The company had put the project on hold in December 2022 in response to the federal government's intervention in the gas market.
However, it said the development would proceed after receiving all the major approvals needed.
"We now have the necessary investment confidence and regulatory approvals to proceed with our expansion and deliver sorely needed natural gas supply to the east coast market," said Senex Energy CEO Ian Davies.
"This announcement is especially timely given the current pressures that the east coast energy system is experiencing, particularly in southern states."
The expansion is set to produce enough electricity to power more than 2.7 million homes each year, equivalent to more than 10 per cent of the east coast's annual domestic gas requirements.
It comes after a warning from the Australian Energy Market Operator about a gas shortage across southern states.
The federal government said the decision to approve the project was lawful.
"This project will primarily contribute domestic gas supply to households and Australian manufacturing – including for glass, bricks, cement and food packaging," a spokesperson for Ms Plibersek said.
"Under Labor, we've already seen a 25 per cent increase in renewable energy in our grid. We are ticking off renewable energy projects at record rates, outstripping coal and gas projects seven to one."
Mr Davies said the expansion would begin delivering 60 petajoules of gas to the market by the end of 2025 and would create more than 900 jobs over the project's lifetime.
"The expansion will drive a significant boost in natural gas supply for Australia, demonstrating Queensland is continuing to do the heavy lifting for the east coast," he said.
The project was approved with 75 conditions, including a prohibition on the discharge of coal seam gas-produced water to surface water and a ban on clearing any koala foraging and breeding habitat.
The company has also been ordered to implement a water monitoring and management plan to watch for issues such as subsidence where land sinks.
Environmental lobby group Lock the Gate said it was concerned the project could lead to further subsidence across the region.
"The more the gas fields spread, the more problems of subsidence and groundwater loss and depletion we're going to see," said member Georgina Woods.
Ms Woods said the project's approval showed Australia continued to put off the hard decisions on transitioning the economy away from fossil fuels.
"If fossil fuels continue to expand, Australia has lost its way in its climate change action," she said.
"The job (of transitioning the economy) is very difficult, but it has to done because the consequences for Queensland from global warning will be catastrophic."
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-26/senex-gas-plans-approved/104022936
************************************Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
https://immigwatch.blogspot.com (IMMIGRATION WATCH)
https://awesternheart.blogspot.com (THE PSYCHOLOGIST)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Evelyn Rae, a conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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