Companies advance plans for new gas pipelines from Beetaloo Basin to east coast

Two companies are moving ahead with plans to build new gas pipelines, which they say will significantly increase supply from the Northern Territory's Beetaloo Basin to Australia's east coast.

First gas from the Beetaloo Basin flowed into the NT power grid earlier this week, at a ceremony where NT Chief Minister Lia Finocchiaro said the resource could provide "more gas than this country will ever know what to do with".

Infrastructure company Jemena has unveiled plans to build a 400-kilometre connection from the basin to the Northern Gas Pipeline (NGP), which runs from Tennant Creek to Mount Isa, and is the only line connecting NT gas resources to the east coast.

Meanwhile, environmental assessment has started on plans lodged by another company, APA Group, to build a new 1,500-kilometre line directly from the Beetaloo, about 500 kilometres south-east of Darwin, to south-west Queensland.

Jemena managing director David Gillespie said if the proposal was built and the general network was improved, the full potential of the Beetaloo could be realised.

"I do think there is a great opportunity to see the NT or the Beetaloo … [not] being infrastructure constrained," he said.

"The resource is expected to be very material, and so the sort of infrastructure that's being built to support it is typically 20 to 30 years at a minimum."

Mr Gillespie could not say how much it would cost, but said the 622-kilometre NGP cost $700 million to build before it was opened in 2018.

He said Jemena would submit a pipeline permit application with the NT government before the end of the year.

APA chief executive Adam Watson in a statement said his company's proposal was "critical, nation-building infrastructure".

"The North to East Australia Pipeline (NEAP) has the potential to be transformational for Australia's energy market," he said.

The NEAP requires environmental approval by the Queensland, NT and federal governments.

Gas export goals

Mr Gillespie said both Jemena and APA Group's projects could be financially viable, and his company would not seek public subsidies.

"We're more in concert than we are in competition … a lot of our emphasis is on how we bring gas to market and commercialise that resource as production increases," he said.

"The plans that APA might have, I think, ultimately go to some of the longer-term opportunities for the Beetaloo to be a key export producer."

Mr Gillespie said Beetaloo gas would primarily be used to power the domestic market in its early years, before transitioning to export markets as infrastructure improved.

"The first gas is probably more likely to support those domestic requirements," he said.

"Whether that's going east to Queensland, whether that's going north to Middle Arm within the Territory, that's for the market to determine."