Jemena has detailed its plans to connect the Beetaloo Basin with the east coast gas market as part of its Northern Territory Gas Strategy.
The company believes it can get up to 90 terajoules (TJ) per day of gas to the east coast market as early as 2026 by using existing infrastructure such as the Northern Gas Pipeline.
Stage two of Jemena’s strategy will increase the Northern Pipeline’s capacity by about 45 per cent – amounting to 130TJ/d of Beetaloo Basin gas and about 10 per cent of typical east coast demand.
Jemena’s Northern Territory Gas Strategy also proposes the construction of a new 370km pipeline extending from the state’s Barkly region to the Beetaloo Basin.
Jemena managing director David Gillespie said in applying its Northern Territory Gas Strategy, the company is keen to truly understand the needs of the market.
“We’re listening to our stakeholders to understand how we can best meet their needs and make their projects a success,” he said.
“As a first step, we are conducting a market-led expression of interest (EOI) process to engage with producers in the Northern Territory as well as gas consumers to understand future pipeline needs within the Beetaloo Basin or the Northern Territory more broadly.
“Our strategy focuses on effectively utilising established infrastructure rather than undertaking large-scale new infrastructure builds, which have an estimated capex investment of between $4–6 billion and won’t be complete until the early 2030s at the earliest.”
Gillespie affirmed that the upside to the Northern Territory Gas Strategy was leveraging existing infrastructure.
“This is a win-win for upstream gas producers and consumers as it will enable Beetaloo gas, particularly early-stage Beetaloo gas, to be delivered to market quickly and without the price tag associated with large-scale new infrastructure builds,” he said.
“This gas is crucial for large industrials and Australia’s $100 billion manufacturing sector which simply cannot wait half a decade for new pipeline builds to be completed.”
Many of the insights in the Northern Territory Gas Strategy were derived from Jemena’s construction of the Northern Gas Pipeline between 2015 and 2019.
Gas production could begin from the Beetaloo Basin by mid-2026 through Tamboran Resources’ Shenandoah South pilot project. Tamboran reached a final investment decision on Shenandoah South in late September.
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