How Australians are being dudded on our gas exports   :(

New Daily
May 30, 2024



Australia is exporting the majority of its gas without receiving a cent in royalties, representing $13 billion in lost revenue, according to a fresh report.

The Australia Institute’s Australia’s Great Gas Giveaway report found that six out of 10 export facilities for liquefied natural gas (LNG) do not pay royalties to either state or federal governments, resulting in 56 per cent of exported gas being “given away for free to the companies exporting it”.


Mark Ogge, principal adviser for the Australia Institute, said the government needs to introduce royalty taxes across all export facilities and launch an inquiry into the management of Australia’s gas resources.

“It is outrageous that the government wrote a 67-page future gas strategy and at no point considered how Australians could get a better return,” he said.

“It was a strategy about how we can benefit multinational gas companies rather than the Australian community.”

Gas industry
Australia exported 82 per cent of the gas it produced, or converted it into LNG for export, in the 2022 financial year.

The oil and gas industry is now paying the lowest amount of tax and fees per $100 in revenue in history.   :(


Australia exports the vast majority of the gas it produces.

Ogge accused the government over the past decades of having a cosy relationship with the gas industry.


“Australian ministers have gone straight from their jobs where they’re regulating and making the rules for the gas industry, into jobs with the gas industry,” he said.


“Politicians in Australia are too close to the gas industry. They seem to have lost sight of the fact that their job is to represent the interests of Australians.”

In the 2022 financial year, fossil fuel companies donated $2 million to the Labor, Liberal and Nationals.   :(

Gas companies have also received millions from a secretive research and development fund, despite the scheme excluding fossil fuels.

According to Gas Energy Australia, the peak body for liquefied natural gas producers, the industry in Australia ‘supports’ over 250,000 full-time workers, but the total number of employed workers in the oil and gas industry was just over 17,000 in 2022.

A different model
Monique Ryan, independent MP for Kooyong, said Australia is allowing foreign oil and gas companies to sell off natural resources overseas for a massive profit and not pay tax.   :(

“We could afford all the things that the younger generation should expect and which they deserve,” she said.

“We are asking the government to tax fossil fuels appropriately and get that money and use it for good.”

Senate crossbenchers previously banded together to pressure the Albanese government to force large gas companies to pay more tax.

Norway and Qatar are examples of countries with a high royalty fee on fossil fuel, according to the Australia Institute, but Australia chooses not to tax all of its natural gas exports.

Ogge said the country is being “price-gouged on our own resources”.

“If we applied a royalties tax to the rest of the gas exported, it would have raised $13 billion,” he said.

“A previous government decided it would remove royalties from oil and gas companies when it introduced the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax. This was a very bad idea.”

He said the gas industry also causes unpaid damages that should be addressed.

“The Australian public also pays for a lot of the rehabilitation. There’s tens of billions of dollars worth,” Ogge said.

“We know the gas companies aren’t going to cover that and the taxpayer is left on the hook.”

Corporations invest $millions in corrupting politicians and profit by $billions from their paltry investments in corrupt politicians.

I saw that yesterday and found it interesting.
Don't really understand what is going on so will be interested in others posts
I did note four out of the six gas fields not paying royalty was in W.A?

Why is Albo giving away billions to gas companies in uncollected royalty!


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-30/gas-royalties-missing/103907264

It's inconceivable that eastern Australians pay much higher than the international price for our own gas.

The WA govt made a decision to reserve 15% of their gas from export projects for domestic use.  Whereas we on the east coast are at the mercy of the gas cartels which make the rules and the Australian govt complies. All whilst the ACCC has been totally useless over the past 10 years in forcing the govt to impose export and price controls on the cartels. 

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Australia missing out on $13 billion in royalty revenue from gas projects, report says
By Clint Jasper
Posted 18h ago18 hours ago, updated 11h ago11 hours ago
LNG tanker leaves Darwin Harbour.
Royalties were not charged on just under 60 per cent of Australia's gas exports during the past four years, leading to billions in lost revenue.(Supplied: Inpex)
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In short: The Australia Institute estimates state and federal governments have missed out on $13.3 billion of royalty revenue that should have been charged on gas exports during the past four years.
Gas exported from six of Australia's 10 LNG export facilities pay no royalties on the gas they sell overseas. Four of these projects are based in WA.
What's next? The Australia Institute is calling for an inquiry into how gas projects are managed.
An independent senator and crossbench MPs say the money lost from royalties that aren't collected by state or federal governments on Australian gas exports amounts to "daylight robbery" by "leeches" in the gas industry.

Gas sold overseas from six of Australia's 10 liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities pay no royalties to state or federal governments, amounting to a sum of $13.3 billion in foregone royalty revenue during the past four years, according to the Australia Institute.

Four of those six projects are based in Western Australia, and two are in the Northern Territory.

Some WA projects source gas from Commonwealth waters but the federal government does not charge royalties, while Woodside's Pluto project is outside of the area captured by the Royalty Act.

Gas projects in Commonwealth waters between three and 200 nautical miles offshore are not covered by state royalty regimes but, rather, the federal government's Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT).

Although, the Australia Institute's executive director Richard Denniss told The Business that the federal government did have the power to impose royalties on offshore gas fields.

"Most of the offshore gas in Australia pays absolutely no royalties at all," he observed.

"The Commonwealth chooses to collect royalties on gas from the North-West Shelf, but the Commonwealth chooses not to collect any royalties on other offshore projects."

Under the PRRT, companies are liable to pay a tax on profits generated by gas projects, but only once the up-front costs of developing those facilities have been paid off.

"In the last four years alone, Australians have given away the gas that made $149 billion worth of LNG, for free," the Australia Institute report said.

"$111 billion worth of this royalty-free LNG was produced in Western Australia."

ACT senator David Pocock said the loss of royalty revenue was "daylight robbery" by "the gas industry that is not paying royalties, (and) not paying petroleum resources rent tax for offshore LNG exports".

" ABC.

I become nervous when I read some companies are taxed but others not.

Something the Federal ICAC may need to look at?

Brown paper bags filled with $$_?

whiteknight wrote on May 31^st, 2024 at 8:59am:

According to Gas Energy Australia, the peak body for liquefied natural gas producers, the industry in Australia ‘supports’ over 250,000 full-time workers, but the total number of employed workers in the oil and gas industry was just over 17,000 in 2022.

So they don't understand about downstream jobs  from mining, fossil fuels etc. How unsurprising. ::)

OH?  And what percentage of that support for downstream workers comes directly from use of gas?  Being as it certainly isn't 100% - that is a rather misleading statement, don' cha think?  Just off the top of my head I'd say that far less than 5% of that support for downstream workers comes directly from gas use.

Anyone?  What I can tell you is this - the GENERAL prosperity of Australia and Australians is massively skewed away from being 'general' in any way at all... and is skewed mightily towards corporations and internal groups/companies/individuals who ship the profits offshore while paying absolutely minimal tax and actually supporting few workers and most of those not in actual work procuring the gas, and who then do not 're-invest' in OUR economy, but in their own.

I suppose such concepts as nationalising gas and having it under Australian control and management is 'communist' or something....

The lucky country sure is a dumb country at times lead by the dumbest in the world, all bought and paid for.

Grappler Truth Teller wrote on May 31^st, 2024 at 12:44pm:

And what percentage of that support for downstream workers comes directly from use of gas?

All the way from spending money at the local store, they have to eat you know. Then there a fuel distributors etc. It is not just the workers on the rigs. ::)

BTW- The royalties paid are a tax deduction. "Necessarily incurred in the production of income". ::)

That will reduce tax paid.

lee wrote on May 31^st, 2024 at 1:03pm:

BTW- The royalties paid are a tax deduction. "Necessarily incurred in the production of income". ::) That will reduce tax paid.

You can't reduce zero unless 'paper' losses are contrived.

All giant Australian corporations structure their affairs to pay as close to zero tax as they can contrive.

Laugh till you cry wrote on May 31^st, 2024 at 1:45pm:

You can't reduce zero unless 'paper' losses are contrived.

Contrived : to arrange a situation or event, or arrange for something to happen, using clever planning

So you think depreciation allowances, operating costs etc that reduce income to below zero are a furphy? Now we know you don't have an economic bone in your body. ;D ;D ;D ;D

"Australian Energy Producers chief executive Samantha McCulloch said the industry was making a substantial and growing contribution to government revenues and would pay $17.1 billion in taxes, royalties and other charges this financial year."

https://www.aap.com.au/news/gas-industry-rejects-leech-tag-over-royalty-freebies/

Does this exclude the income concealed by trading through associated entities in low or zero-tax countries like several Australian energy companies did through trading via bogus companies established in Singapore whereby the Australian company sells to its bogus company at a low price which then makes a big profit on-selling in the international markets?

Singapore is a very corrupt country. They manage to disguise it well. The Singapore government knew what was happening and collaborated for corrupt profit.

Laugh till you cry wrote on May 31^st, 2024 at 2:28pm:

Does this exclude the income concealed by trading through associated entities in low or zero-tax countries like several Australian energy companies did through trading via bogus companies established in Singapore whereby the Australian company sells to its bogus company at a low price which then makes a big profit on-selling in the international markets?

Does the tax claw back from those transactions count? ::)

Laugh till you cry wrote on May 31^st, 2024 at 2:28pm:

Singapore is a very corrupt country. They manage to disguise it well. The Singapore government knew what was happening and collaborated for corrupt profit.

Sounds like Australia?

We need to nationalise ALL our mineral resources

John Smith wrote on May 31^st, 2024 at 4:57pm:

We need to nationalise ALL our mineral resources

They'll call us all communists and place sanctions on us and repudiate treaties and such... make us outcasts.

Actually the West didn't do that to Castro's regime - at first they accepted it pretty much - then its excesses and inabilities began to show and the West turned against it.... so there is a chance for us to go it alone and take back the asylum from the 'global economy' of thieves.

lee wrote on May 31^st, 2024 at 2:49pm:

Laugh till you cry wrote on May 31st, 2024 at 2:28pm: Does this exclude the income concealed by trading through associated entities in low or zero-tax countries like several Australian energy companies did through trading via bogus companies established in Singapore whereby the Australian company sells to its bogus company at a low price which then makes a big profit on-selling in the international markets? Does the tax claw back from those transactions count? ::)

Tax claw back from a company situated Offshore?  How you do that?

Grappler Truth Teller wrote on May 31^st, 2024 at 7:31pm:

Tax claw back from a company situated Offshore?  How you do that?

Have a look at Chevron Vs ATO.

lee wrote on May 31^st, 2024 at 8:16pm:

Grappler Truth Teller wrote on May 31st, 2024 at 7:31pm: Tax claw back from a company situated Offshore?  How you do that? Have a look at Chevron Vs ATO.

Claw back double....

Grappler Truth Teller wrote on May 31^st, 2024 at 7:30pm:

John Smith wrote on May 31st, 2024 at 4:57pm: We need to nationalise ALL our mineral resources They'll call us all communists and place sanctions on us and repudiate treaties and such... make us outcasts. Actually the West didn't do that to Castro's regime - at first they accepted it pretty much - then its excesses and inabilities began to show and the West turned against it.... so there is a chance for us to go it alone and take back the asylum from the 'global economy' of thieves.

They want the minerals,  they'll get over it

John Smith wrote on May 31^st, 2024 at 8:57pm:

Grappler Truth Teller wrote on May 31st, 2024 at 7:30pm: John Smith wrote on May 31st, 2024 at 4:57pm: We need to nationalise ALL our mineral resources They'll call us all communists and place sanctions on us and repudiate treaties and such... make us outcasts. Actually the West didn't do that to Castro's regime - at first they accepted it pretty much - then its excesses and inabilities began to show and the West turned against it.... so there is a chance for us to go it alone and take back the asylum from the 'global economy' of thieves. They want the minerals,  they'll get over it

You got it!  Been telling yez that for years - none of them are going to turn their backs on a chance for profit in the event Australia chooses to tax them or take back the asylum.  as I said about Gina and her two bob workers.... let her negotiate those with some African dictator....

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Australia is a high-cost country. Even "free" solar energy is not cheap.

There has never been cheap gas in Australia. Even industries that turned gas into other products could not turn a profit when supplied with cheap Bass  Strait gas in the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Those industries are now gone and Australia now imports those products from Asia..