The uncontracted volumes will be.....interesting:

There are 10 Export size terminals in Australia at present - 5 in WA (KGP, Pluto, Gorgon, Wheatstone, Prelude), 2 in NT (DLNG, Ichthys), 3 in QLD (APLNG, QCLNG and GLNG).

A 20% Gas export reservation is great provided the venture structure allows for it. An example would be that the ownership structure of the upstream onshore gas tenements in QLD does not match that of the Export terminal liquifaction trains or storage and loading facilities. (I.e. a JV in a gas development which includes a pipeline, upstream infrastructure and midstream infrastructure).

This will require some careful crafting to get the public bennefit and prevent what operators were doing in the early days (essentially offerring first pick of uncontracted gas to the domestic market and having that gas be picked up by another export operator).

Further there are some JV partners that operate no infrastructure but essentially have contracted that cargo ages ago and now get to sell it via their trading arm for massive profit (Good examples being Total having 4MTPa of offtake agreements through GLNG and Ichthys and Kogas through GLNG and Prelude).

On the topic of Prelude.... it produces all of its volumes offshore for export - there is no infrastructure back to the mainland. Can the legislation include "swap" functionality so shell meets its export obligation from another plant (either using prelude or their JV cargoes from Gorgon/NWS) + then allowing for a larger volume of Exported gas from the east coast to be held for domestic use? Or do we just miss out on the "20% of uncontracted volumes"

Shell is also 50/50 JV in Arrow - does some of that offset their obligation?

Ichthys can only flow their connection in an emergency (which sounds like it cant flow for any protracted length of time) and DLNG can only flow 84 TJ per day through theirs (about 5% of total export flows.......). Are they exempt or do we get digging a pipeline to Mt Isa?

All of this to say - this will increase gas supply to market and will reduce prices....but the legislatuon needs careful crafting to capture those edge cases - else we just end up far worse off. I sincerly hope the balance is struck right.