PM to look at using some offshore gas near to home

JOHN Howard has agreed to consider a West Australian plan to put aside some of the nation's offshore gas reserves for domestic use.
Premier Alan Carpenter wants up to 20 per cent of the reserves to be held back to meet future domestic demand rather than being exported as liquefied natural gas to markets in Asia and North America.
He has warned that, under current contracts, natural gas supplies for West Australian households and industry could run out within 10 to 15 years.
The North West Shelf project -- the main development providing domestic natural gas to Western Australia -- originally had to reserve 4.7 trillion cubic feet of gas for domestic use, Mr Carpenter said.
There was about 2.6tcf remaining, and the state's annual gas consumption was now about 0.27tcf a year.
The Premier said West Australians should not be forced to pay international prices for gas found in their own backyard, and that he would use his Government's power of veto over future gas projects as a bargaining tool.
Planned gas projects would be given the green light if a domestic reserve were established.
The state Government released a discussion paper in February that suggested between 10 and 20 per cent of all undeveloped West Australian offshore gas reserves -- estimated at about 113tcf of the national total of about 140tcf -- be set aside to meet state needs.
The paper caused an outcry, with major gas customers such as the alumina giant Alcoa arguing that gas reservation would send domestic gas prices rocketing and make some resource processing operations uneconomic on world markets.
Perth has the cheapest gas prices in the country.
But the Prime Minister has said the federal Government's view is that gas is an asset belonging to all the Australian people, not just those living in Western Australia.
"They are national assets and they should be dealt with in accordance with normal principles of the explorer and the owner of the resource is entitled to sell the resource in whatever manner that person regards as appropriate," he told ABC radio.
"If you are to continue to encourage investment, you shouldn't put fetters on what the investor can do with the product that he or she discovers."
Mr Howard said the principle of governments interfering and telling investors how, and to whom, a product should be sold was wrong.
But a spokesman for Mr Howard said that while he was opposed to the concept, Mr Carpenter's proposal -- which would include supplying gas to Sydney and Melbourne -- would be considered.