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Speaker 1: Commercial gas users are likely to face unsustainable prices this year.

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Speaker 1: According to the gas sector regulator, Gas industry companies laters

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Speaker 1: quarterly reports their supply of gases falling, but demand are

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Speaker 1: staying constant, and that means customers with contracts expiring are

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Speaker 1: either not being offered new contracts at all or just

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Speaker 1: having to pay a hell of a lot more for

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Speaker 1: their gas. John Carnegie is the chief executive of Energy

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Speaker 1: Resources ultier Or Hey.

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Speaker 2: John, heyya there you doing.

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Speaker 1: I'm very well, thank you. Like what kind of an

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Speaker 1: increase in prices are we talking?

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Speaker 2: Oh, look at it. It depends on the volume that's

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Speaker 2: being demanded by the specific businesses. So it's a bit

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Speaker 2: hard to pick a number, but they are sizeable percentage increases.

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Speaker 1: Like enough to basically not be able to afford it.

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Speaker 2: Well. Again, that's businesses are under a lot of cost pressures.

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Speaker 2: But you know, again that's up to the economics of

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Speaker 2: the particular business. But it's certainly at a time when

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Speaker 2: costs are using across the board becoming more and more

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Speaker 2: difficult for our business community. Who are using who using gas?

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Speaker 1: What options do gas users have them? If they're in

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Speaker 1: the commercial game, it's gas or electricity isn't as simple

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Speaker 1: as that.

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Speaker 2: Well, look it kind of is. But first I'd actually

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Speaker 2: like to actually just acknowledge the really tough position these

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Speaker 2: businesses are in and also say that it's one they

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Speaker 2: actually should never have had to face given the abundance

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Speaker 2: of our natural resources. So against that backdrop, look, you're

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Speaker 2: basically right, it's they've got a choice. Well there's there's

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Speaker 2: LPG could solve some of their problems, so bottled bottled gas.

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Speaker 2: Depending on how much they use. They could of course

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Speaker 2: pay the higher gas prices if it's commercial for them

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Speaker 2: to do so. But other than that, it's electrification or

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Speaker 2: actually the worst possible outcome closure.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And do you expect that we will see any

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Speaker 1: business is closed because of this?

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Speaker 2: I would hope not. I mean, I think this is

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Speaker 2: the business community is looking to the government for some

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Speaker 2: solutions around this, and hopefully those solutions are going to

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Speaker 2: be forthcoming.

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Speaker 1: So what solutions, I mean, apart from subsidizing, what else

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Speaker 1: can we do?

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Speaker 2: Well, we can encourage the government could encourage for the

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Speaker 2: expiration of more natural gas. Natural gas is.

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Speaker 1: This government has listened. This government has been in for

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Speaker 1: eighteen months and absolutely diddly squat has happened on the

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Speaker 1: gas gas front, and I am starting to very reluctantly

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Speaker 1: come around to the idea that maybe Megan Woods isn't

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Speaker 1: the problem. We are just running out of gas, because

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Speaker 1: if we had gas out there, and if there were

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Speaker 1: all of these these viable gas fields, surely by now

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Speaker 1: somebody would have tapped them.

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Speaker 2: No. Well, I mean that completely belies the fact that

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Speaker 2: the twenty eighteen decision smashed investor confidence, and so investors

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Speaker 2: in the upstream are reluctant to put their money on

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Speaker 2: the line. When we've got a prospect, particularly of a

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Speaker 2: government that will come in in let's say, three, six,

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Speaker 2: nine years time and flip the switch on its head.

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Speaker 2: That is an untenable risk for explorers to take, and

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Speaker 2: they cannot take it without the government helping d risk

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Speaker 2: that proposition. So, you know, if we don't, you're you're right, We,

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Speaker 2: like you, have been waiting for eighteen months for a

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Speaker 2: signal from government that they are going to a step

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Speaker 2: in and d risk. The issue is if they do not,

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Speaker 2: we have a very very bumpy decade or so.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't the government just do it itself.

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Speaker 2: Well, they tried that in the eighties wasn't a raving success,

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Speaker 2: I have to admit.

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Speaker 1: So if you think the gas is there, and if

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Speaker 1: it one hundred percent is there and we one hundred

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Speaker 1: percent needed, then it's a no brainer, isn't it. If

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Speaker 1: nobody else is going to do it, they need to

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Speaker 1: do it.

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Speaker 2: Well. Well, I mean our preference is that the government

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Speaker 2: puts in place the right conditions to encourage the private

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Speaker 2: sector to invest, just like in any other business here.

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Speaker 1: But I mean it's clearly not happening, is it.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's not happening because we don't have those right

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Speaker 2: regulatory and commercial conditions yet. That's the thing. So we're

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Speaker 2: kind of round and round on this and waiting waiting

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Speaker 2: for the government. Are no, I don't. I don't. I

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Speaker 2: don't think. I don't think we are who they done

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Speaker 2: for them? Well, it's a collective government decision. So it's

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Speaker 2: for the all of the coalition of partners to make

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Speaker 2: a decision as to whether or not they want to

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Speaker 2: put their money into the film industry or the oil

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Speaker 2: and guests.

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Speaker 1: John, thank you, I appreciate it. John Carnegie, Chief Executive

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Speaker 1: Energy Resources. How we'll see it. I'm starting to get

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Speaker 1: very suspicious about this whole situation. We'll talk about it

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Speaker 1: at some stage. For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive

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Speaker 1: listen live to news talks. It'd be from four pm weekdays,

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