GEA Chief Executive Officer, John Griffiths, said watching prices of oil based fuels is only part of the solution, and locally produced fuels can assist more.
“Greater competition in the oil fuel market – when Australia is heading towards full import dependency – is only a pipe dream unless Australia also looks to increased fuel diversity.
“More fuel diversity including use of cheaper, cleaner Australian gas fuels not only reduces import dependency and helps meet Australia’s international fuel security obligations, but with massive upstream supplies of alternatives such as natural gas and LPG, Queensland should have some of the cheapest energy and fuels in the country.
“That’s why GEA is calling on today’s summit to not simply tinker at the edges of existing dysfunctions in the fuel markets, but also look to a future that includes more fuel diversity leveraging Queensland’s significant energy natural advantages – including gaseous fuels.”?
Mr Griffiths said that there had been bipartisan support for downstream gas innovation. and that it mad sense for the Palaszczuk Government to build on Queensland’s LNG foundation as part of its future fuels plans.
“The Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics 2014 Liquid Fuels Technology Assessment also found that natural gas fuels offer the lowest cost of production per unit of energy of a range of fuel types out to 2050 and they remain cost competitive with the lower cost renewable technologies.”?
Mr Griffiths said that gaseous fuels are the only fuel with sufficient availability and energy density to displace oil based fuels in any meaningful way and can play a major part in diversity and increased competition in the future, especially in heavy transport and off-grid generation.