Mr BURKE - 2007-10-09
In September, the Chief Minister travelled to Japan to speak with senior officials about the Territory’s gas future. Can the Chief Minister update the Assembly on that important trip?
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Brennan for the question. Yes, I was in Tokyo for important meetings late last month. I had discussions with the Chairman of INPEX, Mr Matsuo, the President of INPEX, Mr Kuroda, and the new Vice-Minister for Energy, Mr Nakano, to whom I put the case for gas from the Ichthys field. The Ichthys field is off Western Australia in the Browse Basin. The majority shareholding is held by INPEX with a lesser holding by the French company, Total. I put the case for that gas to be piped ashore in Darwin rather than the alternative they have, which is the Maret Islands off the coast of the Kimberley.
There is no doubt about it: the case for the Maret Islands has been well developed. A lot of design work has been done on it and it is well under way. However, we believe that an opportunity exists, albeit a bit of a long shot because it is a very long pipeline, for that gas to come to Darwin for LNG and potentially gas manufacturing.
While I have said the preferred option for INPEX is the Maret Islands, there are some significant challenges for those islands. They include environmental challenges, logistics, costs of a remote island location and land ownership. All those issues are being worked through, but very strongly presented as an alternative to INPEX. When we are presenting Darwin as a good option for development, we all know the arguments: we are a capital city, we have good infrastructure and there is land available right near the CBD and that is land on Middle Arm.
We have done a lot of talking about the options we have. We have talked to the federal government about this Plan B. We have talked to INPEX in Perth. We have had considerable discussions with Dow Chemicals, which is interested in gas manufacturing in Darwin. Last week, the chief executive of my department went to Paris to talk to the Total Group about Plan B.
We put the case strongly and we believe it is a strong case. Members of my department have been working closely over the last few months with the INPEX Group in Perth as they look further at Darwin and investigate the options as an alternative for this Ichthys gas resource. I am not saying that this is going to work. As I said, INPEX is well down the design and preparation phase for the Maret Islands. However, there are challenges and from the Territory point of view, we are presenting the alternative case. We want to see gas development here. We see the opportunities for the Territory for downstreaming of gas: jobs and business opportunities.
Even though it is only a small chance, it is worth taking and we have put a very strong case to both INPEX and Total about what they might do as a back up plan for Ichthys gas. It is a very big gas resource. It is 10 trillion cubic feet of gas. That is a lot of gas and is a bigger resource than Greater Sunrise.
ANSWER
Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Brennan for the question. Yes, I was in Tokyo for important meetings late last month. I had discussions with the Chairman of INPEX, Mr Matsuo, the President of INPEX, Mr Kuroda, and the new Vice-Minister for Energy, Mr Nakano, to whom I put the case for gas from the Ichthys field. The Ichthys field is off Western Australia in the Browse Basin. The majority shareholding is held by INPEX with a lesser holding by the French company, Total. I put the case for that gas to be piped ashore in Darwin rather than the alternative they have, which is the Maret Islands off the coast of the Kimberley.
There is no doubt about it: the case for the Maret Islands has been well developed. A lot of design work has been done on it and it is well under way. However, we believe that an opportunity exists, albeit a bit of a long shot because it is a very long pipeline, for that gas to come to Darwin for LNG and potentially gas manufacturing.
While I have said the preferred option for INPEX is the Maret Islands, there are some significant challenges for those islands. They include environmental challenges, logistics, costs of a remote island location and land ownership. All those issues are being worked through, but very strongly presented as an alternative to INPEX. When we are presenting Darwin as a good option for development, we all know the arguments: we are a capital city, we have good infrastructure and there is land available right near the CBD and that is land on Middle Arm.
We have done a lot of talking about the options we have. We have talked to the federal government about this Plan B. We have talked to INPEX in Perth. We have had considerable discussions with Dow Chemicals, which is interested in gas manufacturing in Darwin. Last week, the chief executive of my department went to Paris to talk to the Total Group about Plan B.
We put the case strongly and we believe it is a strong case. Members of my department have been working closely over the last few months with the INPEX Group in Perth as they look further at Darwin and investigate the options as an alternative for this Ichthys gas resource. I am not saying that this is going to work. As I said, INPEX is well down the design and preparation phase for the Maret Islands. However, there are challenges and from the Territory point of view, we are presenting the alternative case. We want to see gas development here. We see the opportunities for the Territory for downstreaming of gas: jobs and business opportunities.
Even though it is only a small chance, it is worth taking and we have put a very strong case to both INPEX and Total about what they might do as a back up plan for Ichthys gas. It is a very big gas resource. It is 10 trillion cubic feet of gas. That is a lot of gas and is a bigger resource than Greater Sunrise.
Last updated: 09 Aug 2016