SR, Aidan, what utter garbage.

Give a company enough resource & they will produce enough gas to supply every profitable market. They will obviously supply the most profitable markets first, then keep extracting more for less profitable markets as long as it was profitable to do so.

I guess you are suggesting companies supply at a loss with your attitude.

Aidan, both NSW & Victoria refuse to allow any new gas extraction. I am not suggesting this, it is fact.

Yes we are big gas exporters from the north west shelf. This gas is sold very cheaply under contract. The contracts were needed to enable the borrowing to establish the facility. With out forward long term contracts the gas fields would never have been developed for harvest. Even today, our domestic usage is not large enough to justify the development of the fields.

We also export some other gas, & have recently started to establish the export of Queensland coal seam gas.

Victoria has enough coal seam gas in their brown coal, now siting uselessly in the ground after the closure of Hazelwood Power Station to supply Victorian requirements for decades, but won't permit it to be extracted. Buying idiot green votes as usual.

If we don't export our gas, coal & Iron ore, there would not be enough foreign exchange to afford the computers you are typing such garbage on. If you don't understand these facts, do try to do a little research sometime.

Raycom,
Firstly, apologies for getting your name wrong last time.
Secondly, it's true that there are still coal fired power stations being built. But it's no longer the cheap source of electricity it used to be.

Have a look at http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/peak-coal-in-sight-as-new-power-stations-drop-and-retirements-jump-20190327-p5186m.html
The coal age is nearing its end. Only China is still increasing its coal fired capacity in large amounts, and that's for political not economic reasons.

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Hasbeen,
>I guess you are suggesting companies supply at a loss with your attitude.
That conclusion is just a product of your own idiocy - it can't be logically derived from anything I said, nor indeed anything Steele said.

It;s true gas from the NW s sold very cheaply under contract. Until recently a lot of gas was sold in the eastern states under contract as well, and when the contracts expired, gas users had to pay higher prices.

But gas producers have realised their mistake, and prefer to sell gas at the market price. And that's an equilibrium. Were it not for the cost of transportation, every market would pay exactly the same price and be equally profitable. Transportation costs mean there's a small price difference, but it stays small. If international gas prices rise, there will be a similar rise in domestic prices. And with unrestricted exports, increasing production will not prevent this.