Australian independent Cooper Energy and Hong Kong-owned utility EnergyAustralia have agreed to extend a 5 PJ/yr (134mn m³/yr) gas sales agreement under their existing Sole field deal.
Cooper will supply gas from its Sole field, in the Gippsland basin offshore Victoria state, for three years from January 2026. EnergyAustralia was an initial customer for Sole, which reached a final investment decision in 2017 and produced its first gas in 2020.
Sole, Cooper's main producing asset, has struggled to meet expectations because of the Orbost Gas Processing Plant experiencing problems, capping its output to an average of 46 TJ/d (1.23mn m³/d) during July-September, below nameplate capacity of 68 TJ/d.
EnergyAustralia is developing the 316MW Tallawarra B gas-fired power plant in the Illawarra region of New South Wales (NSW), which it expects to be ready for operations during the 2023-24 Australian summer.
The coming December-February summer is predicted to be hotter than average by Australia's Bureau of Meteorology with the likelihood of greater power demand for cooling purposes.
The country's competition regulator Australian Competition and Consumer Commission expects the east coast market will likely avoid a gas shortfall next year. But many gas fields in southern Australia are depleting, leaving the states of Victoria and NSW reliant on increased transport and storage of Queensland gas.
Fewer GSAs for next year were finalised than in previous years on the back of industry uncertainty over regulatory interventions, preceding the announcement of a new gas industry code of conduct in July.
Cooper is not subject to the code's contentious price cap of A$12/GJ ($7.81/GJ) on domestic gas sold under contract in east Australia, as it produces under 100 PJ/yr and supplies only the domestic market.
