Media

Federal political reporter at The West Australian, Dan Jervis-Bardy (formerly of Canberra Times) puts an incisive question to Woodside Energy CEO Meg O’Neill at the National Press Club of Australia today quoting CEF’s new analysis released overnight showing the massive multibillion dollar safeguard mechanism carbon liability the company and its JV partners are facing if they fail to abate emissions at their existing gas facilities and open up Browse and Scarborough. Read more

Woodside Energy and its partners are looking at a carbon gas bill of up to $63 billion by 2050 under new Safeguard Mechanism rules, according to a new report from Climate Energy Finance (CEF). This compares to the company’s market capitalisation is $64 billion. The reformed Safeguard Mechanism requires that Scope 1 emissions from Woodside’s two existing LNG processing facilities for the North-West Shelf (NWS) and Pluto fall by 4.9 per cent every year, while the two proposed gas fields must be net zero emissions from the start. Read more

Woodside chief executive, Meg O’Neill, says Australia needs new gas developments to protect against an energy shock, and has warned that well-funded protest groups risk choking supplies. Climate Energy Finance said in a new report that Woodside will expose itself to a multi-billion dollar liability if it progresses plans to expand gas operations in Western Australia’s north-west. Read more

New analysis showed Woodside and its partners would face a carbon bill of $63 billion under the safeguard mechanism out to 2050 if they proceed with the Scarborough and Browse projects. There is as yet no target date for a go-ahead on Browse, which would tap high-content CO2 fields off the Kimberley coast. Read more

Tim Buckley, director of Climate Energy Finance, estimates Woodside and its Scarborough and Browse LNG project partners face a safeguard mechanism carbon bill of $63 billion out to 2050 if they go ahead. Australian gas producers face the tightening of the safeguard mechanism to make it work as it was designed – as an effective cap-and-trade carbon pricing scheme. Read more

Woodside CEO, Meg O’Neill’s comments came as new analysis from the Climate Energy Finance group found Woodside would be hit with a $63bn carbon credits bill out to 2050 under the safeguard reforms if it goes ahead with its Browse and Scarborough LNG projects in WA. Read more

As CEF”s Matt Pollard writes, EV sales accounted for 15% of the global passenger vehicle market in 2022, up from just 5% in 2020. In February, EV sales in China hit a record 32% market share of passenger auto-sales, with fossil fuel-based vehicles falling 20% in absolute terms from February 2022. Capital deployment into clean energy technologies and supply chain diversification has turbo-charged EV sales, galvanised by the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the EU Net Zero Industry Act (NZIA). We look at the trends and implications for Australia. Read more

Via AAP syndicated in Canberra Times and a hundred plus mastheads. Climate Energy Finance (CEF) has tallied the cost based on the recently legislated emissions safeguard mechanism and the development of the proposed Browse and Scarborough mega-gas fields o the WA coast, if emissions at existing gas facilities are not cut. CEF is calling on the board to urgently re-evaluate the investment case for the projects, and use the recently legislated safeguard mechanism to invest in emissions reduction at its existing facilities. Read more

The scale of getting Australia to reach net zero emissions by 2050 is colossal. A new report says Australia’s electricity grid will need to triple in size and trillions of dollars will need to be spent, and gas-fired generation capacity will need to double in the coming decades, if the lights are to stay on Read more

Melbourne, Queensland and Princeton University researchers from the Net Zero Project say gas-fired power capacity will be required for some time yet. However, CEF’s Tim Buckley says gas-fired capacity and output should not be confused. There will be a progressive shift from gas base-load power generation to gas peakers to enhance reliability as the transition to renewables and battery storage accelerates. Read more

Tim Buckley comments on the new CEIG report which says private capital investment of over $420bn is needed to decarbonise the NEM in line with 1.5 degrees. The scenario is ambitious but credible, said Tim Buckley”, “the global landscape has changed so fundamentally in the last 9 months, the Australian landscape has changed with new government, such that we now have state and federal alignment but also at the global level, and the US Inflation Reduction Act is a global gamechanger.” Read more

Reflecting on CEIG’s Decarbonising the NEM report, “Tim Buckley said financial resources were already at hand to but investors needed lawmakers to create confidence so they could plan. ‘We now need the right policy aspiration to unlock already existing technology solutions and leverage our transformative, once in a hundred year decarbonisation investment opportunity’. Read more