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How will Australia's North survive as fuel prices increase?

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Most oil is produced in the South - SA and Victoria. The north has plenty of gas though, still lots of prospective areas untouched too.

What might be a better alternative than trying to tame the wild north is to legislate a move to using CNG for all vehicles over a certain weight. Our liquid fuels deficit hit $23B this year and the rate of increase has been alarming - in 2010 it was just $17B. Moving most heavy vehicles to CNG would provide a massive reduction and is relatively easy to do since they account for < 10% of all vehicles but a far larger % of KM travelled.

You say the Loony ALP. Have you read the Loony Corgi Bernardi? It was also a Liberal Govt that decided a wind farm couldn't be built due to a parrot - an extra 4 deaths a year IIRC.

You also support a PM who believes in the ever increasing house prices is somewhat difficult for those not owning a home, but is sure damned good for those already in the market. If that's not churning of the money I don't know what is.


What is the issue with the land being owned by China? They don't really control it. What ever food is grown will have to be sold at market rates so not particularly easy for them to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, unlike the googles and ebays of the world. I will admit the way the State and Federal Govts handling of the second stage of the ord river irrigation area was poorly handled - Liberal and ALP can share the blame, but it's more a state issue than Federal so the WA state Govt has to wear most of the blame for that one. Not sure I like the idea of over 14000 hectares of land being devoted to sugar cane. Now that's a waste of arable land! The proposed alternatives were only marginally better with cotton or sandal wood. I just wonder if salinty will raise it's ugly head again - previous attempts at sugar processing were stymied by rising salinity – five or six times sea salinity in some areas of the scheme.

Are you so negative of Australian company investments overseas? Maybe the Govt should ban all foreign investment in the country and ban all Australian listed companies from investing overseas? Heck, maybe we should just cap our imports to match our exports so there's no deficit any more?
 
sydboy007 said:
Most oil is produced in the South - SA and Victoria. The north has plenty of gas though, still lots of prospective areas untouched too.
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Historically true about oil in Vic and SA but it's pretty much gone now.

At the peak Vic alone produced enough oil to supply most of what Australia uses. Production from Bass Strait underpinned our 85% net self sufficiency in crude oil for many years. But today Victoria doesn't even produce enough oil to run Melbourne. That's a huge shift to say the least with production having pretty much collapsed due to resource depletion.

We had oil in SE Australia but the vast majority is already gone, production today being minor compared to what it was in the boom days of the 1980's when it peaked.

This concern about oil and gas being limited resources isn't some doomsday prediction. Unfortunately, it's actually happening rather close to home already. Today, close to two thirds of the oil Australia uses is imported and domestic production continues to trend down. In due course, gas will go the same way - many seem to think sometime 20 or so years from now we'll see the peak, after which it's all downhill....
 

I'll take your last quote first - tell me some overseas countries that allow Australian investment, also what Asian countries allow us to buy freehold their land?

Secondly, you seem well versed on the ord river irrigation, you are then aware 25MW of hydro generation water goes down the drain to the sea.
That immense amount of waste could be pumped, if LNG were available.
i'm over it.
 

My understanding is the ord river scheme is leasehold not free hold.

LNG is available. We just have to get used to paying the current market rate for it.

If we, the people, don't paying international market pricing, then we should allow some new exploration licenses that only allow domestic sales, or reserve a particular % for domestic use.

Federal and state Governments for the last couple of decades haven't really bothered to do that. We're in the situation we're in due to short term Governance.

Pretty much I think North Korea is about the only country that doesn't allow foreign investment.

Australian companies have investments in:

China Indonesia Vietnam Singapore Thailand Cambodia Japan Hong Kong

They also have investments in

USA Canada UK Brazil Chile

There's plenty more countries but you get the idea. Australia probably does have one of the more liberal foreign investment systems in the world, but that's partly due to the fact we don't save enough and have had to rely on foreign capital since the days of the first fleet.

My understanding is ORDHP already provides around 30MW of hydro power. Are you proposing a second power station to be built? Where? 25MW is not much power generation in the grand scheme of things. probably cheaper to build a medium sized wind farm closer to where most of the our electricity is consumed.
 

Thanks Doc,

It's not difficult to see what could be achieved with imagination and good governance for the North and West.

The ALP had a free run from the commentariat on the disasterous NBN, so why not a big project like the North.

Fuel prices as you point out, would come down.

gg
 

To my knowledge, there are very few countries that allow overseas companies to have direct ownership of freehold land, we do.

My point, with regard the 25Mw power station, is that the through put of water could supply irrigation water further South.
The problem is we need LNG available there for pumping.
 

Still don't know why you believe developing the northern interior will cause fuel prices to drop

http://www.ga.gov.au/products-servi...esources-australia/2010/reserves/table-1.html

From that table only Carnarvon and Gippsland have significant proven oil reserves.

Bonaparte might provide further supply should the probable reserves come to fruition.

In case ya geography is a bit hazy, the Carnarvon basin comprises a big chunk along the coast of WA, Gippsland basin is down off the cost of Victoria and the Bonaparte Basin is along the continental shelf border with Timor Leste.

So unless you're proposing an unregulated free for all in the shale oil industry - most farmers don't want it on their agricultural land for many reasons from toxic chemicals pumped into the ground to millions of litres of briny water that needs to be pumped somewhere - I really don't see how fuel prices will fall.
 
Lack of nearby development isn't going to stop the extraction of oil if someone finds it in significant quantities, indeed if anything the reverse is true.

There are countless examples of towns built specifically to develop some natural resource. Leigh Creek (SA, coal), Mt Isa (Qld, metals), Poatina, Tarraleah and Strathgordon (Tas, hydro-electricity), various places in northern WA (iron ore, gas / oil), the former township of Yallourn (Vic, brown coal mine and associated power stations), Moomba (SA, gas / oil), various towns on the West Coast of Tasmania (mining, subsequently also hydro-electric development). All built specifically to support the development of some natural resource. And when the resource is developed (hydro) or eventually runs out (minerals) the town either disappears or drastically downsizes as a result of little (hydro) or no (minerals) ongoing activity being required.

Also there are many examples of towns greatly enlarged due to a specific industry or resource being developed. Eg Burnie (Tas) grew from a small settlement to technically becoming a city on the basis of the port and heavy manufacturing industries (best known of which was paper but also sulphuric acid, titanium dioxide and mining equipment manufacture - all closed now except for the mining equipment however). Or Newcastle (NSW) with coal mining nearby and previously a steel works and other industries. Or the various industries around Gladstone (Qld). Or the likes of Morwell (Vic) which grew along with the coal mines and power stations. Etc.

Existing towns and other activities (especially agriculture) may prevent the development of a resource in some situations however. Eg building a dam that involves putting an existing town under water is a far more difficult decision than if the town wasn't already there. And the ongoing conflict over coal seam gas in agricultural areas of Qld and NSW is a well known example. There's actually coal under Sydney and it was mined historically - but we're not going to start ripping up the suburbs to continue mining, thus making the resource effectively worthless. Same with the coal under the inner northern suburbs (Lenah Valley / New Town) of Hobart and the brown coal around Melbourne - the presence of the city at best limits the extent of resource development and more commonly means it stays in the ground.

If someone finds oil in significant quantities in the middle of nowhere then the cost of building a town to support it, or more likely FIFO, isn't going to stop the development of the oil resource unless it's a minor quantity that doesn't justify the cost of even temporary buildings. Whilst there are examples of resources developed due to proximity to existing towns and infrastructure (eg the previous mining of coal in Sydney and Hobart - neither of which would happen today due to changes in society's views and real estate values etc) such things are always of a small scale in nature. If they were big then the presence of the city or town would be a problem rather than an asset unless the resource just happens to be conveniently located next to, but not within, the otherwise developed area - possible but unlikely in practice.

And if we did find a huge amount of oil in northern Australia then it's still not going to make much difference to local petrol or diesel prices. They'd just extract the oil and ship it overseas, local supply being from imports. Unless it's truly massive, something of international significance, then we're not going to see a refinery built on the back of a local oil discovery. At most, gas associated with the oil might make gas available to towns or some other industry in an area that otherwise doesn't have gas available and for which a pipeline to existing supplies is uneconomic.

Do take a good look at that table of oil resources though. Australia's total oil reserves are roughly equal to 3 years' worth of domestic consumption and that figure is trending down along with production. The "oil problem" is a real one at least in terms of Australia and issues such as the balance of payments effect of large scale imports is concerned. It is indeed a limited resource.
 
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