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John Carnegie: Energy Resources Aotearoa Chief Executive on Methanex closing its Taranaki plant · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Gas user Methanex. They are idling their Taranaki plant. It's
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: about 40% of the gas demand in New Zealand that
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: will go with it. John Carnegie, Energy Resources Aotearoa CEO. John,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: good morning.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, good morning, Ryan.
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  Speaker 1: Our first question is whether there will be, now that
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: there is more gas coming online, that will fill the
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  Speaker 1: hole that we have in our dry year.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Well, no. Look, first, there isn't a surplus of gas.
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand is already short of gas and production is
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  Speaker 2: continuing to fall off. unfortunately mirrored by industrial closures, but
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  Speaker 2: we're in an energy deficit, and Methanex stepping back means
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  Speaker 2: that some of that scarce gas can now be used
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  Speaker 2: elsewhere to benefit electricity users. And so the problem is
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  Speaker 2: we're freeing up gas by losing a major manufacturer and exporter,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: and it's a bit like the snake eating its tail.
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  Speaker 1: Who's next?
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  Speaker 2: Well, there are any number of other large gas users.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: And I'd hate to speculate. I mean, we don't want
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: anyone to be next Ryan. Balance? Well, that's quite possible,
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  Speaker 2: but it's hard to tell. Yeah.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: So in terms of the, this is obviously going to
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: 160 jobs, all those sorts of things. Does the LNG
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: case change in your mind as a result of this?
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  Speaker 2: Well, first official advice for LNG already excluded Metanex. And
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: as I've said, there's no net addition in our gas
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  Speaker 2: availability from this reshuffling. And of course, you can only
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: use this gas once. So, for example, if any in
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  Speaker 2: the next few years are dry, cold and calm, we'll
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: actually tear through it in preference to using coal and
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: diesel in our electricity system and our vulnerability will return.
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  Speaker 2: So what LNG does is it gives the power generators
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: and industrial users another source of gas while our existing
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: fields continue to decline. So it can help bridge the
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: gap while New Zealand rebuilds domestic natural gas supply and,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: of course, builds more intermittent weather-dependent renewables. We need that
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: bridge because new domestic gas can take a few years
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: to build, sorry, to find, appraise and bring to market, as,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: of course, the new wind farms and solar farms do.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: John Carnegie, Energy Resources, Aotearoa Chief Executive.
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  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge, listen live
• 2:34
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• 2:38
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