No wonder the proposed liquefied-natural-gas players are up in arms at the latest news coming out of the premier’s office.

By my calculator, there are approximately 30 million tonnes of LNG per year approved for export so far. The three projects discussed to date are expected to come on stream by the year 2020.

Today’s selling price, to Asian customers, is around $18 per mmBTUs or somewhere in the neighbourhood of $900 per tonne. Thirty million tonnes multiplied by $900 per tonne equals $27 billion (still using my calculator).

If Clark and company are looking for a quick bailout of their fiscal mismanagement to the tune of $4.3 to $8.7 billion a year from these LNG players, that equates to a windfall LNG tax of 15.92 per cent to 32.22 per cent in addition to royalties already in place.

Wanna make a bet on how many of these plants get built?

Dennis Morgan

Retired LNG engineer

Victoria

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