“We are contemplating intervening in our domestic energy market in ways that we wouldn’t have contemplated in earlier years.”
A report by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission released on Monday found the prices being offeredon the spot market between March and August for 2023 delivery averaged $20 a gigajoule,more than double the average $10 a gigajoule being offered in the six months to February. That means prices will have doubled by next year.
These prices have flowed through to long-term gas contracts being offered to manufacturers,whose representatives told this masthead that the prices now being offered had reached as high as $45 a gigajoule.
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East coast gas contract prices traded as low as $4 a gigajoule prior to 2015,when exports began and linked the east coast to the international market.
An international energy crunch is driving international demand,following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,and the federal Treasury forecast in last month’s budget that gas prices would rise 20 per cent more next year,and electricity prices would also spike a further 30 per cent.
The federal government is under pressure to relieve the pressure of energy costs on households and industry,following election promises to revitalise manufacturing and to cut power bills $275 by 2025.