PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Federal Resources Minister Madeleine King has urged the New South Wales government to consider a domestic gas reservation policy to ensure domestic supply.

Reacting to questions from the ABC Capital Hill programme, King noted that recent comments made by New South Wales Treasurer Matt Kean around a national gas policy, which would force Western Australia to supply gas to the east coast, was impossible to implement.

“There’s no pipeline. There’s no import terminal. There’s no means to get gas to New South Wales other than from Queensland or Victoria or South Australia. New South Wales does not use its gas reserves and, you know, maybe they need to think about their energy security in that context,” King said.

Directed to major Santos’ Narrabri project, which is in the works, King said that the project was an important one for the state government.

“Looks like there’s still a little way to go on developing that project, but I think if the state government chooses to let that go forward with approvals it’s well within Minister Kean’s remit to think about domestic gas reservation policy for New South Wales, and I would support that entirely,” King said.

Santos’ Narrabri gas project has the potential to supply enough natural gas to meet up to half of New South Wales’ natural gas demand where more than one-million family homes, 33 000 businesses and 300 000 jobs rely on natural gas as a source of energy.

Santos acquired Hunter Gas Pipeline which owns an approved underground gas pipeline route that passes close to the Narrabri gas project.

The Hunter Gas Pipeline already has planning approval and, once constructed, will potentially connect the Wallumbilla gas supply hub in Queensland to New South Wales, providing a second route to southern markets for Queensland gas and adding competition to the domestic market. It has been designed with offtake points at regional towns along the route and the corridor was selected to ensure minimum impact on communities, landowners and the environment.

Subject to receiving remaining government approvals, construction of the pipeline is expected to start in early 2024.