Jane Norman

Good morning and welcome. 

Thank you for the opportunity to speak this morning, at a time that is, without question, a critical moment for Australia and our industry. 

Today, I want to speak to a simple but powerful truth: Australia needs us. 

Australia’s gas security is national security. 

I have just returned from CERAWeek in Houston, one of the world’s largest energy conferences. The message could not be clearer. 

The US became a net energy exporter in 2019, and the momentum has not stopped. Capital is flowing, investment thriving, and projects are being approved. 

Governments are supporting their domestic industry to build capability and strengthen national energy systems. 

By focusing on energy security, the US is now an energy superpower- the world’s largest oil and gas producer 1F investment. 

That did not happen by accident.

The Middle East conflict has once again, laid bare the fragility of global energy supply chains. 

We are entering one of the most severe oil supply disruptions in recent memory- and this comes less than three years after the 2022 global energy crisis shook every sector of our economy.

This is not a distant problem. In regional Victoria, where we operate our gas plants, farmers are already struggling to access the diesel they need in order to spread fertiliser. 

Food security is at stake, right now, in our own backyard. 

Australia produces just 20% of its own transport fuels. Our last two refineries in Brisbane and Geelong run largely on imported crude, while 80% of our diesel, petrol and jet fuel is shipped from Singapore and South Korea. Our transport fuel supply is already dangerously exposed. The question must be asked: why would we compound that risk by making ourselves dependent on imported gas as well? 

Let’s take a clear look at Australia’s energy mix. Gas delivers around a quarter of Australia’s energy needs today.

Fossil fuels, coal, oil and gas combined, supply more than 90% of Australia’s primary energy. 

Renewables account for less than 10% 1 0F . Globally, over 80 percent of primary energy still comes from fossil fuels.

Nowhere are the stakes higher than in Victoria- the nation’s most gasdependent state. 

Eight out of ten households rely on gas for heating, hot water and cooking. 

Manufacturing, which employs around 270,000 Victorians, depends on gas to produce everything from glass, bricks, paper, and cement. 

Critically 91 per cent of the gas used by manufacturers is for hightemperature and feedstock processes that cannot be viably electrified. 

But supply is tightening. The traditional engine of Victorian supply, the Longford Plant in the Gippsland Basin, is in structural decline.(i) 2023-24 data Australian Energy Update, Table A 

Longford, the system’s historic swing producer, is reducing the capacity that has carried the state through winter peaks for decades. 

It is ironic that coal seam gas supply from Queensland, originally developed almost solely for export LNG markets, now regularly flows south during winter to prevent Victoria running out of gas. 

Without new supply, Victoria will become increasingly reliant on gas transported from Queensland or, even worse, on imported LNG priced at global market rates. 

LNG imports today would be more than A$35/GJ, based on JKM pricing over the last month, more than three times Amplitude Energy’s average realised gas prices. 

This price would feed into higher electricity prices and demand destruction, leading to industry shutdowns, job losses, and everyday people not being able to afford to keep their homes warm. 

That is not a green energy transition. That is energy poverty. 

Here is the central paradox. Based on Geoscience Australia data, Australia has abundant gas. In offshore Victoria in the Otway, Bass and Gippsland basins, there are more than 2,000 PJ of reserves and 4,000 PJ of discovered resources 2F(ii). These are geologically proven basins, close to major markets, and connected to existing infrastructure. Domestic gas can be delivered at a fraction of the cost - both economic and environmental costs - of imported LNG. Yet investment is being strangled by regulatory delay, policy uncertainty and political intervention. 

The recent South Australian election showed the politics are shifting. The high One Nation vote was perhaps a protest, but it was also a signal. Australians, particularly outside the inner city, are telling us that energy affordability and food and fuel security have become urgent kitchen table issues- for the first time since the 1970’s era of stagflation. 

Constituencies are feeling the gap between ideologies and the lived experience- smart Governments are reading those signals early, not after the fact. What Australians want now is practical, affordable, secure energy. Gas delivers that, and policy makers are recognising the need for change. 

Prior to the Middle East conflict, independent modelling undertaken by ACIL Allen for the Federal government shows the consequences. In a “no reform” scenario, East Coast wholesale gas prices spike above $20/GJ – similar to the heights of the 2022 crisis. With the timely development of new domestic supply, prices are maintained around $13/GJ, meaning gas bills would be 30% lower, and electricity bills would be 8% lower for households and businesses. New domestic supply also prevents 122 petajoules of demand destruction- keeping manufacturing open, jobs secure, and Australian-made products on our shelves and reducing our reliance on global supply chains at this precarious time. 

This is not a theory. This is the cost difference between energy sovereignty and energy poverty. 

The Middle East Conflict is not only a warning; it is an opportunity. 

LNG customers around the world are actively seeking supply diversification. Australia’s trusted position as a strategic supplier to our Asian partners has never been more valuable. If we act decisively, we can grow our production, deepen those partnerships and strengthen our energy security at the same time. 

This is a “crisis” we must not waste. 

This is precisely where Amplitude Energy is focused. We develop Australian gas for Australians. Every molecule we produce goes to the domestic market because that is where Australians need it the most. 

We operate two gas assets in regional Victoria, providing local well-paid jobs and supplying the domestic market directly. And right now we are going further. 

Together, with our partner O.G Energy, we are undertaking an one of the Australia’s largest offshore drilling campaigns-, in recent years. Through our rig consortium with the Transocean Equinox, we are drilling exploration wells in the prospective yet underexplored Otway Basin. 

On success, we could produce enough gas to meet the needs of over 600,000 Victorian homes from as early as 2028.

We are investing now because the need is now. 

And yet we remain one of only a handful of companies actively investing in new domestic gas supply. That should not be the case, and it will not change without reform and clear signals from government that industry investment is welcomed in Australia. 

Over the last decade, ongoing intervention in the Victorian gas market has held back investments at every turn. Bans on unconventional gas, gas substitution road maps, legal challenges on seismic surveys, and attempts to phase out new residential connections- all have contributed to a less certain, less responsive market. 

At the national level, 15 federal interventions over nine years have failed to deliver lower prices. Offshore petroleum exploration spending – represented by the red line on this chart - has fallen fourfold from its 2009 peak. It fell to as low as $70 million in late 2022 directly in the wake of the Gas Market Code intervention. 

The only thing that has been proven to lower gas prices in the long term is encouraging investment to generate more supply. 

Let me give you one concrete example red tape and the indirect impact of green lawfare – this is not an exaggeration. 

We recently sought approval for an administrative change to the throughput of one of our existing gas pipelines. 23 steps and 5 months later, we were f inally able to increase gas supply into the market. The technical evaluation took 7 weeks. The rest was bureaucracy. 

The most shocking part is that none of the regulators or agencies involved could have made this slide - as none of them understands what the full approvals process involves! 

This is unsustainable, especially if energy self-sufficiency is a priority. 

We are working in an intensely competitive global environment. Other resource-rich nations are actively welcoming foreign upstream investmentoffering certainty, stability, and clear development pathways. 

The International Oil & Gas Companies operating in Australia are not growing here. They are managing the decline and directly transferring their global capital to more welcoming jurisdictions. Australia’s position as an attractive upstream investment destination has slipped. This must change. 

What we need is straightforward: political courage grounded in science and energy literacy, not ideology. 

We need to get the settings right- the fastest investment signal the government can send now is not a subsidy- it’s a clear approval pathway. Get the regulations right, and capital follows; leave them broken, and subsidies become inevitable.

Australia faces a choice. Develop our own gas resources and keep energy affordable and secure — or import LNG at global prices and replicate Europe's crisis. There is no third option. 

Sleepwalking into import dependence, as we did with transport fuels, doesn't just hurt households. It hollows out our industrial base and exports our jobs alongside our emissions. 

The energy transition is an energy addition. It will be judged not by the ambition of our rhetoric, but by whether it delivers reliable, affordable energy every single day. Gas is not a barrier to that future. It is the foundation of it. 

Australia has the resources, the capability, and the technology. At Amplitude Energy, we are drilling, investing, and delivering. Now it is time for governments act. The decisions made today will shape our energy system for decades. This is not the moment to hesitate. It is the moment to act. 

(i) https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-investment-2025/united-states 
(ii) https://www.ga.gov.au/aecr2025/gas