Latest / Best of Business / Tina Schirr: Business NZ Energy Council Executive Director on businesses being hit by surging gas prices

Transcript

Tina Schirr: Business NZ Energy Council Executive Director on businesses being hit by surging gas prices · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News talksed be follow
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: New Data on just what a mess we've got with gas?
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Business New Zealand Energy Council tells us this morning, nearly
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: half of the gas using businesses have produced operations, increased
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: prices or and or cut stuff. Immediate actions needed. But
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: what action? There's the question. Tina Share as the executive
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: director of Business New Zealand Energy Council and is with us.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: Good morning, good morning. I know the major users met
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: with Shane Jones on Friday. Did anything come out of it?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: I mean short of going we're running out of gas.
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: We're running out of gas. We are running out of gas.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: What do we do.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: Well? It's actually on Friday we had a bit of
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: a different format we had for the first time, I
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: guess your useiforum am heldward us and Optimi toget it
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: and it was more for the smaller medium sized users.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: So we had some major users in the room, but
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: let's just say out of the one hundred and fifty
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: ninety percent was probably more your you know, brewing companies
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: to mato gross food producers that are producing cereal and
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: that sort of production, so quite a different audience and
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: therefore probably people that are not often heard about. The
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: gas situation. Idea was obviously, but.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Some important point is it's all very well sitting around
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: in a room saying we're running out of gas. Is
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: anything that's being done about it? Can any won't do
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: anything about it?
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Well, there was a little bit of that that we
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: talked about. The problem which is its well known and
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: often the smaller ones are probably hit harder because they
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: have maybe less opportunity to get to other technologies or
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: away from it. But there is there is actually some
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: business that can convert. So you have about forty percent
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: that don't really see it commercially viable in the next
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: five years, but there is also a chunk that could
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: convert if you do remove things like some of the
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: cost barriers, or if you help with infrastructure being built
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: and upgraded around. But the problem is that you just
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: mentioned the next two years. Even if they do convert
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: the next two years, something like that is not happening overnight.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: And when you say can convert to what.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: We have, for example biogas or for example electricity, it's
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: probably the most two common things that are always discussed
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: when you think of conversion or or more energy efficiency production.
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: So you had also eca in a room, which is
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: promoting more energy efficiency production? And when you say what
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: sort of things we are discussed in terms of solutions,
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: they thinking of, you know, going on site, inspecting business,
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: what are the business opportunities in terms of conversion, and
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: then heading in some ideas. I mean there wasn't I
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: think they also slowly thinking about potentially concessional loans and
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: so actually interest loans to help business maybe converting.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: I can be blunt and suggest I'm not suggesting, I'm saying.
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: I'm just saying, as Devil's advocate, is this not the
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: price of business? I mean, if you need to convert,
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: you need to convert, and that's the cost of doing business,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: isn't it.
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: Well, no one really saw how steep this reduction is
• 3:28
  Speaker 3: going to be in the last two years, right. I
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: feel like there was a little bit of a writing
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: on the world with reduction over the last let's just say,
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: five to ten years in sort of like a moderate level,
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: but not as steep as we saw it.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: Okay, all right, to appreciate it, Tenna share, who's the
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: is with the Business New Zealand Energy Council.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: For more from news talks, a'd be listen live on
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: air or online, and keep our shows with you wherever
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio