NATURAL GAS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31139, 16 August 1966, Page 12

NATURAL GAS

Australian Project (N Z. Press Assn.— Copyright) BRISBANE, August 15. A 900-mile gas pipe-line, costing about 46 million dollars (£l6 million), may soon be built from the Central Australian gasfields to the north coast of Australia. The pipeline, which will provide more energy potential than the Snowy Mountains scheme, could open up a major export market for natural gas. Details of the scheme, now in the planning stage, were given by Mr lan McFarlane, a senior Australian oil exploration and mining executive. He is deputy chairman of Magellan Petroleum (Aust.), Ltd, the company planning the new pipeline. He told a northern development seminar organised by the Queensland Young Liberals that one of the major problems in northern development was a shortage of energy.

One way of overcoming this was by utilising the vast natural gas deposits of Central Australia.

Magellan engineers had proposed a design for the project, and it was now in the design and planning stage. The gas would be piped northwards for use at mining industries such as those at Gove (bauxite), McArthur river (lead and zinc) and Groote Eylandt, on the Gulf of Carpentaria (manganese ore). This would involve a pipeline of about 20in in diameter stretching from the Mereenie and Palm Valley gasfields north to the mining centres. Mr McFarlane said the pipeline scheme could start “fairly soon.”