Australia’s LNG Industry to Contribute AU$55 Billion to GDP by 2020

Mining Weekly reported that Australia’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry could contribute more than AU$55 billion to the country’s GDP by 2020 if it can improve international competitiveness, introduce a more flexible labor regime and remove regulatory constraints. These findings came from a new analysis put together by LNG producer Accenture Plc (NYSE:ACN).

As quoted in the market news:

In a new report titled ‘Ready or Not? Creating a World-Leading Oil and Gas Industry in Australia’, Accenture found that over the next five years natural gas production would increase by more than 90 percent, the number of wells in production would increase by 400% and pipeline infrastructure in Australia would increase by 45 percent.

Total cumulative capital investment and operating expenses would reach around A$360-billion by 2020, 40 percent more than the A$250-billion invested during the recent capital investment boom. Against this growth backdrop, greater industry and regulatory collaboration, accelerated workforce re-training and further investment in digital and automation would be required.

However, Accenture pointed out that a successful transition from construction to production could be a win-win for LNG operators, the Australian service sector, the government and the overall economy.

The report states that, according to Australia’s top-tier LNG operators and service providers, the industry was well prepared in several areas for this transition – building workforce capacity and capability, and tuning and adapting business models for production. The companies surveyed rated workforce capability and capacity as the highest-scoring of the five readiness dimensions measured at 0.68 out of a possible 1.0, and 0.58 respectively.

Click here to read the full Mining Weekly report.