Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / John Carnegie: Energy Resources Aotearoa Chief Executive on government decision to reverse oil exploration ban

Transcript

John Carnegie: Energy Resources Aotearoa Chief Executive on government decision to reverse oil exploration ban · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Any government's confirmed, of course, that they're about to reverse
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: the twenty eighteen ban on oil and gas exploration. New
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: exploration will be allowed off the coast of places like
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Taranaki and on conservation land. It will also allow for
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: small scale, non commercial gold mining. The amendment Bill will
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: be introduced to Parliament later on this year. Energy Resources
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  Speaker 1: Chief Executive John Carnegie's back with this. John, very good
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: morning to you.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Yes, good morning, Mike.
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  Speaker 1: Could we say, with the benefit of hindsight, what they
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  Speaker 1: did back in twenty eighteen should never have happened.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, Well, what started off as climate leadership unfortunately ended
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  Speaker 2: an energy chaos. Yeah. And actually the sad thing that
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: that mic is that it didn't need to. It was
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  Speaker 2: entirely foreseable. You know, it's basic economics. If you squeeze
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  Speaker 2: supply in the absence of economic alternatives, all you do
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  Speaker 2: is lose jobs and investment, increase energy prices, you get
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: energy shortages, and you encourage fuel imports. And actually, in
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: New Zealand, the ironic thing here is that coal has
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: been the balancing electricity fuel and thank God for genusis
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: energy of course, but more broadly, the pathway we're on
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  Speaker 2: if we can't recover domestic gas production, we'll end up
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  Speaker 2: looking at olng imports in what a silly outcome for
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  Speaker 2: New Zealand that would be.
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  Speaker 1: Exactly And going exploring though for gas and gas has
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  Speaker 1: been the main talking point in the last couple of weeks,
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  Speaker 1: given they gave us the supply issue. Do we know
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  Speaker 1: there's gas there? It's just a matter of finding it
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  Speaker 1: or do we not know? And it may well be
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  Speaker 1: we explore and find nothing.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, I know in New Zealand's are long known as
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  Speaker 2: being gas prone. There's putting a guests here. It's just
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  Speaker 2: a matter of getting more explorers down here and having
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: more wells drilled to find it.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: Right, And so do we have a problem the way
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  Speaker 1: Jones argues that we do reputationally speaking, that we've damaged
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  Speaker 1: it and we need to resurrect it to get people
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  Speaker 1: down here to start looking again.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: That's exactly right. You know we've got massive sovereign risk
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: created by the band and the government. Well actually, I
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  Speaker 2: mean in terms of I guess your question is has
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  Speaker 2: have the change has gone far enough? And you know
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  Speaker 2: only time will tell, of course, because the band did
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  Speaker 2: create severe damage to investment confidence and so obviously what
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  Speaker 2: we need to do, because we haven't seen the detail
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: of the legislation will emerge over coming months. We'll have
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  Speaker 2: a look at that and we'll make a judgment. And
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  Speaker 2: actually it won't just be our judgment, critically, it will
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: be the judgment of investors, both the incumbents that we
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: have at the moment, because the are the ones who
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  Speaker 2: are most likely to increase production quickly if if the
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: conditions are right, but also overseas investors.
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  Speaker 1: What do you say to that, I mean that it
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  Speaker 1: seems to be the weird thing about this is I mean,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: even if you're not a big fan of oil and gas,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: I mean, the reality is that each and every winter,
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: transpower come up and say, cold morning, we've got trouble.
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  Speaker 1: We don't produce. There's a massive gap between what we
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: need and what renewables can provide. And I would have
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  Speaker 1: thought that's like we and all the green the greens
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: are still telling us that this is putting profit ahead
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  Speaker 1: of people, it's putting the climate behind it. What do
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  Speaker 1: you say to all those people who still don't seem
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  Speaker 1: to get.
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  Speaker 2: It, Well, well they get it, they just get it
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: within their own terms of reference. I guess actually, I
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  Speaker 2: mean from my perspective, Mike, we actually need to stop
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  Speaker 2: having one dimensional binary conversations. We don't need to have
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: those to make progress on our climate goals. It's not
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: necessary to trade off the our energy security and affordability,
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: and frankly, imposing hardship and lowering living standards isn't a
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: solution in our view. Look, we can have more gas
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  Speaker 2: and achieve it's an end and achieve our climate goals
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  Speaker 2: because more natural gas will help underpin the greater development
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  Speaker 2: of renewable sources of electricity. It will stop the important coal,
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  Speaker 2: it'll encourage by keeping downward pressure on electricity prices, that
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  Speaker 2: will encourage the decarbonization of transport. So that pretty solid
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  Speaker 2: environmental chops. To be honest, Actually, even our Climate Change
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Commission thinks we can produce more guests relative to their
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  Speaker 2: pathway and what we're currently producing. So there's even they
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  Speaker 2: think that we can still meet our targets with more
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  Speaker 2: guest production.
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  Speaker 1: Very well, So, John, good to have you on the program.
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  Speaker 1: Appreciate John Carnegie. Indadew Resources out here are chief executive.
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• 4:25
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• 4:28
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