Who will own it ? Vladmir Putin is in the process of nationalising Russia's energy. Fuel is very cheap there and cheap fuel underpins living standards.

I doubt we will see a drop in the price of fuel because of the oil at Coober Pedy since too many greedy people already own this country.

Anything that comes out of the ground should be nationalized.

A saving grace is that the Arckaringa Basin is dry outback and may encounter less nimbyism compared to say eastern seabord coal seam gas. Some say the US fracking boom has already peaked, the effect being to restore 2012 US oil production to 1994 levels. A temporary reprieve at best.

Linc seem to have a knack for publicity that leads nowhere. Recall their little green car than ran on fuel from underground coal gasification. Not a peep lately. I wouldn't get my hopes up. A better idea is to expand the nearby Olympic Dam uranium mine and go nuclear for power generation. That might free up natural gas as a car fuel.

I wonder why we haven't tried a non chemical extraction method. The application of super heated steam down one drill hole, forces virtually ready to use oil up another.
Steam heated rocks also responded quite explosively to alternating cold water or better yet, liquid nitrogen/gas.
One can also see a case made for exploring and exploiting the outback deposits first, given the amount of reliable solar thermal heat available for carbon free processing.
That said, given my druthers, I'd rather explore and exploit the great barrier reef, which may even hold larger, and much more easily recovered liquid hydrocarbon reserves.
An off the shelf drilling platform would set us back around a billion. And very predictable oil finds in say the Townsville trough would pay for half a dozen more; to recover oil from larger troughs, just a little further out!
The sheer number and widespread frequency of mystery oil slicks, provide reasonable evidence, that we are sitting on a quite massive resource.
And much less environmentally harmful as recovered hydrocarbons, than shale oil!
Which in recovery and refining, can and will produce four times more comparable carbon! The more expensive oil/gas becomes, the more likely we are, to see shale resources recovered!
Traditionally, Australian oil leaves the ground as virtually ready to use, sulphur free, sweet light crude, needing only basic chill filtering to produce a superior diesel.
Locally available very low cost diesel, would save the local car industry.
I mean we already produce a diesel powered territory/cruze.
These locally built, more environmentally friendly vehicles, would command much higher sustained sales volumes, if we could power them with much cheaper, locally produced fuel!
And if so called greens would just concede that it is carbon that is killing the reef? Half gone in just the last 30 years!
Then lowering our own carbon production by around four times, by actually exploiting the reef, can't hurt, at least not nearly as much as the status quo; or, being left with virtually no other option, thanks almost exclusively to "GREEN" activists, besides developing our own shale based resources!
Rhrosty.

I love the optimisim in this article.

For a scientific and rational look at real reserves and the true state of the energy future I would suggest the author and others read this: http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-07-17/world-oil-and-gas-production-forecasts-up-to-2100

As to the statement on the first line by the author Dr Daly "Australia's massive mineral exports allowed it to weather the global recession, which began in 2008, quite nicely."

Well that seems a little odd to me. When the GFC commenced the country had little or no government debt, despite private debt closing on 100% of GDP.

Today we have public debt at +$250 billion and climbing at an increasing rate, private debt has not changed much, it has actually increased to around 105% of GDP.

If this is supposed to be good news, I would hate to see what is bad?

I admire optimism, but reality and physics also come into play and these factors are not really considered when discussing energy, particularly 'energy return on energy invested', as such, like the rest of the world we may have huge reserves, whether we can get them out of the ground at a price people can pay will be a totally other thing.

Given the on-goinging printing in the worlds major financial nations, it is only a matter of time before the whole world ponzi finance system splutters and crashes into a brick wall.

Once this happens, not if but when! Who will be left to cough up the money that will be needed to fund this extreme energy resource, no one I would suggest.

Optimism bias is an innate inbuilt human trait, unfortunately it gets us into too many blinkered views of the future, I would suggest this article is one of but many optimisitic views on the future of 'tight oil'
Cheers
Geoff

The next petro super state?
Well we could be, if only our government would get back into the oil and gas business.
As opposed to the moribund mumbling of mindless mantras, that go like broken record rhetoric, that the government has no business in business.
Tell that mad hatters tea party nonsense to the much more practical and pragmatic Singaporeans, who now refine most of our oil for us.
Or the United Emirates, or the Norwegians, who have built a truly massive, for their population, income earning sovereign wealth fund.
We simply can't wait for price gouging, tax avoiding, economy destroying multinationals to move in on us, to either exploit our native reserves, capture and massively manipulate our local market; or more likely, acquire the most easily accessed leases, then sit on them for over two or three decades, simply to maximise returns.
Returns already exceeding four trillion per.
And a huge amount of power and influence, particularly one feels, amongst a number of recalcitrant, tin eared politicians, more concerned with their post politics retirement concerns/consultancies, than any part of the genuine national interest?
Perhaps we need to ask our intending political aspirants about their plans for the peoples' national oil and gas industry?
Oil that we could recover for as little as $10.00 a barrel, as a virtually ready to use diesel!
Failing a satisfactory commitment; regardless of politic stripes, lose most support!
Or be relegated to just a one term parliament, if failing to follow through with their personally promised (in writing) commitments.
Rhrosty.