Senex Energy, Brisbane, agreed to supply up to 17 petajoules (PJ) of natural gas to building products manufacturer CSR Ltd.
The 10-year agreement, to begin in January 2025, will see Senex supply natural gas from its proposed Atlas coal seam gas expansion project in Queensland’s Surat basin for use in CSR’s manufacturing site on Australia’s east coast.
CSR signed the first gas contract from the Atlas acreage in 2019.
Senex said the gas supply agreement, the eighth in recent months, brings its total conditional gas sales from the Atlas expansion to more than 150 PJ. In July, Senex struck two gas supply deals related to the Atlas expansion. One, to manufacturing and resource recovery business Visy, is for supply of 20 PJ of natural gas for 10 years beginning in January 2026. The other is a conditional agreement with EnergyAustralia for supply of 24 PJ of natural gas from January 2025.
Atlas expansion came into question in December 2022 following government intervention in the gas market (OGJ Online, Dec. 13, 2022). Senex said the newest agreement, signed in early September, is subject to governmental conditions and that the company is working to satisfy conditions as soon as possible.
The expansion is expected to an increase in natural gas production to about 18 PJ/year, an increase of 50% (OGJ Online, Aug. 17, 2021).
