EnergyQuest has released its March 2025 EnergyQuarterly report with comprehensive analysis and data for the December Quarter, 2024 together with comments and data of breaking news.
The real energy culprit is demand
The theme of this report is that with the energy transition, the residual and hard to displace demand for fossil fuels, including gas, is a key challenge. Restricting supply of gas ahead of ready alternatives which might meet this demand has the effect of driving up energy prices and increasing the risk of energy supply interruptions. Both are not good results with an election approaching. We also look more closely at recent setbacks for green hydrogen, which is one of the candidates to replace natural gas.
It is not all gloom on the low carbon front though, with renewable power generation on the east coast reaching a record 46% share of electricity generation, and coal down to 50%. Gas-fired power generation at 3.9% was the second lowest generator fuel segment, after minuscule oil/diesel.
We note a narrative is building that the Queensland LNG producers are sucking gas from eastern Australia domestic users and sending it overseas, causing a drain on gas for the southern states. Instead we look at total Queensland gas supply and pipeline flows, and conclude that there is no drain on the east coast by Queensland with its LNG projects.
Exploration investment in the Northern Territory soared to a record $200 million in Q4 2024, passing even Western Australia. This gave the best national result since Q4 2015 – a welcome change to recent lows in exploration spend.
Key Statistics
- Total petroleum production held steady in Q4 2024. Total petroleum production of 269 MMboe in Q4 2024 was effectively unchanged from recent quarters.
- There was record coal seam gas production by the Queensland LNG projects (+1.9 MMboe).
- Australia’s LNG industry achieved annual production 80.5 Mt in 2024, up slightly from 80.4 Mt in 2023 despite accelerating decline of the North West Shelf and zero exports by Darwin LNG. The result reflected a near-record year for our biggest LNG project, Gorgon, and record shipments by APLNG, GLNG, Pluto and Prelude.
- EnergyQuest estimates LNG export revenue was down slightly at $17.6 billion during Q4 2024, compared to $17.8 billion for Q4 2023, reflecting slightly lower average prices qoq offsetting slightly higher shipments (up 0.2 Mt qoq). However, revenue in Q4 2024 was up compared to a total $15.9 billion in Q3 2024.
- The ABS reported that average LNG prices for Australian producers decreased by 1.3% qoq to US$10.83/GJ in Q4 2024. The major producers separately reported mixed results in averaged realised LNG prices, ranging between -6.1% for Woodside, to +2.7% for Origin.
- Beach Energy’s Otway Gas Project led an increase in total conventional east coast gas production in Q4 2024 for the second consecutive quarter. It provided two thirds of the east coast production increase to 92.8 PJ in Q4 2024, up 9.3 PJ (+11.1%) compared to Q4 2023.
- East coast spot gas prices ranged from $12.25/GJ in Victoria to $14.71/GJ in Brisbane, returning to figures previously seen in 2021 and now generally below international benchmarks (except for Henry Hub).
- Australian oil production declined at a rapid rate in Q4 2024 and set a new record low for annual production. Annual production decreased 10.8% (-3.1 MMbbl) to 28.3 MMbbl.
Information about the EnergyQuarterly is available by clicking here.