MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
Market disruptor: nuclear restarts spells trouble for LNG
By Nick Cunningham of Oilprice.com - There are two major factors that have emerged in the last five years that have sparked a surge in LNG investments. First is the shale gas “revolution” in the United States, which allowed the U.S. to vault to the top spot in the world for natural gas production. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rules“Australia is where the action is”
Jan 28th, 2014 - 05:42 am - Link - Report abuse 0Nail. Head.
LNG or uranium. We have plenty of both so it is a win win for us when it comes to Japan.
Adding China, India and Indonesia's future needs to the mix and Australia's position as an energy superpower is assured.
Glad to hear it, and long may it remain so.
Jan 28th, 2014 - 09:05 am - Link - Report abuse 0Governments really need to start investing in R&D and have better energy policies. The energy companies will just keep pumping and selling while there are vast profits to be made.
Jan 28th, 2014 - 10:45 am - Link - Report abuse 0Digging up fossil fuels and burning them is the world's biggest industry and yet investment in alternative energy sources is pitiful. We need something clean and plentiful like fusion power rather than worrying about leaving the lights on.
Australia needs to export something as their mining industry is in dire straits with the slowdown in China.
Jan 28th, 2014 - 01:31 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Australia could offer Japan a deal: 1000 abbo's with each boat of LNG.
@4 your casual racism is tiresome, oh so boring and very 'last century',
Jan 28th, 2014 - 07:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Back to the topic. China is still and will continue to be a huge purchaser of minereals and fuel for many years to come. I really don't think Australia needs to be concerned just yet.
The pity of all this is of course the lack of investment by western governments in solving the nuclear waste / recycling problem.
Jan 28th, 2014 - 09:31 pm - Link - Report abuse 0If only all the money wasted on global warming, now climate change and the associated burden of “green taxes”, an oxymoron if there ever was one, we could perhaps have cracked the problem AND bought Thorium on to a successful conclusion.
The problem is as always, the politicians are ignorant of science and need the votes of many who shouldn’t be let out on their own, never mind voting.
While it is like this it is difficult to ever see a sensible conclusion. Windmills and Stevie’s free energy won’t cut it.
Agree on both points Ilsen.
Jan 28th, 2014 - 09:35 pm - Link - Report abuse 0China will eventually slow down, indeed I am a believer that China will suffer a horrendous recession and correction to rectify the massive imbalances in its economy - and while this will massively impact Australia, there is a optimism.
Recessions are a self correcting mechanism within a capitalist/free market system as they help to reduce or eliminate imbalances and act as a spur for reform and change. Australia's near-on 22 years of expansion has meant that our economy has not had this rectification happen for quite a while. Recessions are not always drawn out and long affairs like those suffered by Spain and Greece, sometimes they can be short and sharp.
A year of negative growth in Oz will help businesses innovate and raise productivity, dampen wage growth and in the long run lower government spending. With little government debt and extremely stable and healthy banks this shouldn't be a fearful event. Especially considering the government doesn't attempt to distort the economy as much as some do.
China, however, will probably have a hang over for quite a while. But even then it will still need to feed itself, heat and cool itself and build things whether for infrastructure, consumption or export - so Australia will always have a market there.
And as I said, there is always India and Indonesia that have huge growth potential for exactly what Australia produces.
Australia had 10 or 12 years of growth before the mining boom took off, so it is not as reliant on the mining industry as many believe. Indeed, while investment in the mining industry has dropped, the production is about to ramp up. The money is spent already, so the infrastructure will sit there until it is needed.
The largest uranium deposit in the world, Olympic Dam, is located in my state. I't's also the 4th largest copper deposit. They're ( BHP-Billiton ) not mining uranium though and won't until uranium prices increase. There are also environment issues to consider and there has always been significant opposition to uranium mining in this country.
Jan 29th, 2014 - 03:39 am - Link - Report abuse 0The Fukushima disaster halted the gradual momentum that supporters of uranium mining had developed and stopping the expansion of Olympic dam cost BHP a considerable amount of political capital. Since India hasn't signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty we can't sell uranium to them. I expect this will be over-turned eventually but it's not a done deal, and doing so will undermine the credibility of the treaty IMHO.
I expect that, given the worlds insatiable thirst for energy, Australia's uranium is going to be mined and exported. Perhaps we will build some for ourselves. But it will take a while and it will be expensive - in many ways.
@4 Klingon
“Australia could offer Japan a deal: 1000 abbos with each boat of LNG.”
Care to expand/clarify that remark?
7&8
Jan 29th, 2014 - 04:24 am - Link - Report abuse 0Interesting stuff. Thanks guys. You have obviously done your homework!
I also think the last part bears repetition:
@4 Klingon
“Australia could offer Japan a deal: 1000 abbos with each boat of LNG.”
Care to expand/clarify that remark?
I don't think we should expand on racist comments like that.
Jan 29th, 2014 - 09:25 am - Link - Report abuse 0@ Fair dinkum!
Jan 29th, 2014 - 06:23 pm - Link - Report abuse 0He has come back on it so hopefully we won't see similar comments in the future.
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