BG Group's $32bn project to gas up economy

Australia's liquefied natural gas (LNG) resources have received a major boost with
the BG Group announcing it will commit $15 billion to develop a LNG project in
central Queensland.
Queensland's Curtis LNG Project will provide an economic stimulus of $32 billion
over the next decade.
The project involves the building of a LNG gas plant at Gladstone, a 450km
underground pipeline network and expanding production in gas fields in the Surat
Basin around Chinchilla in south west Queensland.
It will create an estimated 5000 jobs during construction and nearly 1000 when the
plant is operating, with the first LNG shipments scheduled to leave the port of
Gladstone in 2014.
Catherine Tanna, executive vice-president of BG Group and managing director of its
Australian subsidiary QGC, says the project will increase economic activity in
Queensland by $32 billion over the project's first decade.
"We also expect to pay about $1 billion a year in federal taxes and a further $300
million or so each year in royalties to the Queensland government," Ms Tanna said on
Sunday.
She told reporters the saline water which was part of the extraction process would
be treated "to quite a pure quality" and returned to farms and communities.
"We have not been deaf or blind to the fears some hold about our potential impact,"
Ms Tanna said.
"We will bring change, and we will also bring responsibility to the mines, air, the
water and the relationships we have with our neighbours," she said.
"We are determined to do the right thing.
Treasurer and acting Prime Minister Wayne Swan said the project would deliver a huge
boost to Queensland and Australia.
"It will provide vital support to jobs, to small business, to future investment and
it will do that within a framework of environmental protection and the protection of
agricultural production," Mr Swan said.
"It will also bring a very substantial boost to Australian exports."
Mr Swan said BG's plant would be half the size of the whole of the North West Shelf
project and produce a third of Australia's LNG.
"This will be close to the biggest ever investment in a Queensland resource project,
probably the biggest," he said.
"This is a vote of confidence in the attractiveness of Australia as a place to
invest and do business."
Mr Swan said the project would increase inward investment by about 10 per cent per
year for the next four years and would boost Queensland's exports by a similar
amount.
Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said the Gladstone project would prompt a flurry
of activity in the LNG industry.