Continuing our look at the world’s leading energy industries on from our previous feature on coal and oil, we’re now turning our attention to Natural Gas, Liquid Natural Gas and Nuclear Energy. Check out part one of our two part series focusing on Coal and Oil.
Australia’s size and geological makeup means that there is plenty of natural resources to power private and public industry, and future technologies will make them more efficient and cheaper to use.
Natural Gas
Australia hosts two large natural gas reserves with more being discovered as exploration continues. Currently, Western Australia leads the way in natural gas production, with Victoria and the Northern Territory also being used. Together, they comprise the largest natural gas reserves in the Asia-Pacific region. As production is exceeding consumption, the future of Natural Gas looks stable.
Extraction of Coal Seam Methane or Coal Seam Gas is a relatively new process and has seen a monumental growth since its mainstream approval. The local industry, based around its production in New South Wales and Queensland, has had $31 billion dollars of investment put into it in 2010.
Liquid Natural Gas
Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) is an important and fast-growing energy sector, made all the more vital due to Australia’s relative isolation from other countries. The distance means that transportation of natural gas, typically done through conventional gas pipelines, is made all but impossible. Thankfully, it can be easily transported as Liquid Natural Gas.
Australia currently is the home of two LNPG production facilities. The first is the North West Shelf Venture, located north-west of Western Australia, and is Australia’s largest resource development project and was even at one time the largest engineering project in the world. Following this is the Darwin-LNG, which began production in 2003 and opened in 2006. It is a 502 kilometre pipeline stretching to a plant at Wickham Point, where gas is then converted and sold to Japan.
Construction of LNG projects continues in Queensland and Western Australia.
Nuclear Energy
Despite Australia having no nuclear power facilities, it is still making an important contribution to the nuclear energy industry. It is the second largest producer of Uranium, with around a quarter of the world’s uranium deposits, placing it just behind Canada.
The vast majority of the country’s Uranium reserves are in the Northern Territory and South Australia, with future developments set to proceed in Western Australia and Queensland.
Major customers of Australian Uranium are Europe, Japan and America, which have nuclear power plants.
MetSolv has been serving the energy industry since 2012 and continues to deliver heavy duty and accurate energy metering solutions to clients across Australia. Contact us to find out more about what MetSolv can do for your business.
