Federal government to investigate feasibility of west-east gas pipeline

A pre-feasibility study into a massive west to east gas pipeline has been commissioned by the Department of the Environment and Energy.

Announced in this year’s budget, the west-east gas pipeline pre-feasibility study is the first Commonwealth investigation of the potential for constructing a gas pipeline from Western Australia to link up to the east coast gas market.

ACIL Allen, in conjunction with GHD, won the tender to carry out the investigation. ACIL Allen will be involved in the market and analysis component of the study, while GHD will take on the pipeline engineering and pipeline route assessment component.

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The findings from the study may inform a full feasibility study to test the viability of constructing a natural gas pipeline to provide additional gas supplies and increase competition in the east coast gas market. ACIL Allen and GHD are due to provide the pre-feasibility report in March 2018.

Australia’s eastern energy market has been subject to enormous scrutiny in recent times, the latest intervention coming from Tesla’s Elon Musk who said in an interview that the situation defied belief.

Tesla, incidentally, is building what will become the world’s largest battery to store power generated from a nearby wind farm in South Australia.