Elixir Energy is promoting collaboration with neighbouring projects to get gas flowing from the Taroom Trough west of Brisbane sooner rather than later.

Leases owned by juniors Elixir Energy and Omega Oil and Gas border those owned by the world’s largest oil and gas company, Shell.

The trough is an unconventional field with vast reserves at depth.

Image: Elixir Energy’s Grandis Project location near energy infrastructure

Queensland was littered with examples of redundant infrastructure, including the development of the Surat Basin in the noughties, where three separate LNG projects all competed with each other, Elixir Energy managing director Neil Young said.

In the case of the Taroom Trough, the proponents’ common interests were greater than their differences, Mr Young said.

“There’s collaboration in terms of sharing data in the success cases, collaboration in developing assets in the least cost and most rational way,” he said.

“I would hope that in the success case, the development of the Taroom Trough would see more collaboration in terms of pipelines, processing plants, use of drilling rigs, and things like that. At this point that is happening. As things get successful, testosterone tends to break through and can overcome reality.

“Then there’s a role for government, not necessarily in providing money or directing outcomes, but in terms of herding cats in a way that puts them in a single direction. 

“So I think that that can be very important, can be to everybody’s benefit. It sometimes doesn’t happen, and we’ve got big examples of that, and we’re trying to learn lessons and avoid that as we go forward.”

Elixir has the Grandis Project in the Taroom Trough, which Elixir puts up as a low-emission profile reserve.

Mr Young used the example of the development of the Bowen Basin in the 1960s and ’70s to show how collaboration built common user infrastructure, like the electrified rail network and encouraged the involvement of overseas investment.

“And it’s a good example there of the Japanese companies being a very significant part of that development because it was part of bringing important resources to their country,” he said.

“They also provided money and it provided very, very enduring long-term partners.

“Now on our sort of gas asset, when the Japanese are so vulnerable to energy that they had to import from the likes of Russia, I think that they are likely to want to replicate that sort of model here, be long-term partners, provide money and expertise, and provide offtake because we are a geopolitical ally as well as being a long-term supplier of products.”

A smoother, more consistent regulatory process was needed, Mr Young said.

“There are legal processes which are set, which mandate how you go,” he said. “Now, could they be improved to do those sorts of things? Absolutely. 

“Could the states and the feds cooperate better? Absolutely. Times 10. I mean, we have a redundancy in terms of environmental approvals, through both state and federal (levels). 

“That’s a political question. We can obviously lobby, but that needs to be resolved at a higher level and I think that as part of the gas strategy announcement last week, hopefully you would see greater opportunity for that to occur.”

You may also like: