AEMO has today released the 2018 Western Australian Gas Statement of Opportunities (WA GSOO), which provides an independent assessment of the WA domestic gas market for the 10-year outlook period 2019-2028.
The report has found that Western Australia’s (WA) domestic gas market is well-supplied until 2020, however prospective gas sources may be required to ensure there is sufficient supply to serve the WA domestic gas market in the longer term.
“Our findings highlight a tightening of the domestic gas market in 2021 as supply contracts begin to expire and some existing domestic gas facilities face reserve depletion,” said AEMO’s Executive General Manager WA, Cameron Parrotte.
“Despite these forecasts, we’ve seen a growth of both committed and prospective supply sources since 2017, and we anticipate an additional 240 terajoules a day in new production capacity from 2019. The report also notes that any prospective tightness in the market may be alleviated by the acceleration of production from existing processing facilities or withdrawals from gas storage facilities,” said Mr Parrotte.
A number of committed projects are due to commence in 2019, while an additional four are already in the planning phase, which could provide as much as 485 terajoules a day in incremental supply if they commence during the outlook period. While development plans for these prospective domestic gas supply sources have solidified compared to 2017, they are yet to reach the Final Investment Decision stage.
A positive outlook for commodities over the outlook period is expected to lift gas demand, as new gas-consuming mining and minerals processing projects commence.
The WA GSOO again highlights the interdependencies between the domestic electricity and gas markets, with additional renewable energy generation within the electricity expected to influence gas demand for gas-powered generation (GPG) for electricity.
“We have a total of 762 megawatts of large-scale renewable generation being built or announced with an added 1.4 gigawatts of rooftop solar PV that is forecast to come into the electricity market over the next 10 years. These changes to the supply mix suggest GPG may operate for fewer hours and consume lower volumes of gas in the future compared to previous years unless other types of existing generation capacity can no longer be economically dispatched, ,” said Mr Parrotte.
AEMO will continue to work closely with market bodies, industry and governments to progress developments that will enable an affordable, reliable, and secure energy system for Australian energy consumers now and into the future.
To view the full report, please click here.
To unpack the WA GSOO in even greater detail, we have AEMO's GM of WA Markets, Martin Maticka and Neetika Kapani (Manager, Reserve Capacity) discussing the report in the podcast below.