The Australian - Security a crucial issue at gas talks

NATIONAL and international energy security is expected to be a key issue at a major oil and gas conference beginning in Perth today. ... While industry heavies from across the world, including Royal Dutch Shell executive director gas and power Linda Cook, BHP Billiton Petroleum president Michael Yeager and senior US energy department official Jim Slutz, will be attending, much of the domestic industry's interest will lie in domestic issues.

The new federal Energy Minister, Martin Ferguson, is expected to take up points he has made to industry meetings recently that the Rudd Government is keen to cut red tape and that it wants to encourage investment in an internationally competitive industry. Mr Ferguson is expected to argue in a keynote address that Australia is on the threshold of developing an energy province in the Browse Basin north of Broome which will be important not only for Australia, but internationally, as a major contributor to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in Asia. ...

APPEA has been leading the campaign against replacing the current retention lease regime -- a proposal put forward last year by the Howard government as a sop to the West Australian Government following its controversial policy of demanding that export LNG project proponents quarantine 15 per cent of their reserves for future domestic consumption. APPEA chief executive Belinda Robinson believes the issues facing the oil and gas sector centre on: declining oil production, both in Australia and globally; increasing energy demand, particularly in the Asia-Pacific; growth in energy nationalism and the emergence of government oil companies setting agendas; and higher environmental consciousness in the community leading to concerns about energy's contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. ...

APPEA has a target of encouraging at least 70 per cent of new electricity generating stations constructed in Australia to be fuelled by natural gas by 2017. ...

Onshore exploration in Australia has declined dramatically in recent years and there are large areas of the country which remain under-explored.

SMH - Govt gets serious on offshore petroleum

The federal government has put 35 offshore areas up for grabs for petroleum exploration. The released commonwealth areas are located across five basins off the Northern Territory, Western Australia, and the Territory of Ashmore and Cartier Islands coastlines.

The news comes as the minister warned Australia faces a $25 billion trade deficit in petroleum products by 2015. While new oil projects including Enfield, Puffin and Stybarrow would help address the issue, Mr Ferguson said he was keen to see exploration in frontier basins as they were the most likely place for a large new oil province to be discovered.

Bloomberg - Australia Needs to Boost `Frontier' Oil Exploration, Group Says

Australia's oil explorers need to widen their search for discoveries in so-called frontier areas to avoid a A$28 billion ($26 billion) petroleum trade deficit within a decade, the nation's oil and gas industry group said.

Australia has 50 sedimentary basins, of which just 12 are producing oil and gas, pointing to potential for drilling in little-explored areas, said Belinda Robinson, chief executive officer of the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association. Four basins have been deemed non-commercial.

Crude-oil production in Australia dropped about 3 percent last year to 120 million barrels, contributing to a A$13.7 billion petroleum trade deficit, up from A$900 million in 2000, according to the industry group. Spending on exploration jumped 57 percent last year to a record A$2.66 billion even as the number of wells drilled fell as equipment and labor shortages drove up costs. ...

In the absence of finding a ``major new oil province,'' Australia will be importing 80 percent of its requirements for oil and refined products by 2015, up from about 20 percent in the 1990s, Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said in February.

Bloomberg - Australian Minister Warns Oil, Gas Explorers May Lose Leases

Oil and gas companies hunting for oil and gas in Western Australia risk losing rights to petroleum leases if they don't commit to moving forward with developments, a Western Australian minister said.

Eighteen petroleum leases in Western Australia are set to expire this year, Western Australian Deputy Premier and Minister for State Development Eric Ripper said today at the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association annual conference in Perth. If companies don't commit to work programs to move forward with projects ``there could be opportunities for other investors to take those over,'' Ripper said.

Bloomberg - Australia Seeks Bids for 35 Oil, Gas Drilling Permits

The permits in the 2008 auction are located in the Bonaparte, Browse and Carnarvon Basins off the northwest coast and in the Perth Basin off the southwest. Bids for 17 of the permits close on Oct. 9, with the remaining 18 areas closing on April 9, 2009. Under Australia's oil and gas exploration permit system, licenses are awarded to the bidder that pledges to carry out the most exploration in the area. Separately, the South Australian government invited bids for three new onshore oil and gas exploration permits in the Otway Basin.

Herald Sun - Industry plans to hit the gas