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Paul Madden

British Ambassador to Japan

Part of UK in Australia

20th June 2013

Australia: gas super power

HE Paul Madden with Linda Miles UKTI and Nick Park QGC at Surat Basin well head

Hard hat, heavy boots, pre-dawn start. That’s what a visit to an Australian resources site entails. I’m getting used to it. Australia is a gas superpower, on its way to overtaking Qatar as the world’s largest LNG exporter by the end of the decade. British companies are big players in developing the industry, offshore in Western Australia and onshore in the East.

HE Paul Madden with Linda Miles UKTI and Nick Park QGC at Surat Basin well head
HE Paul Madden with Linda Miles UKTI and Nick Park QGC at Surat Basin well head

Last week British Gas took me to see their Coal Seam Gas developments in the Surat Basin in Queensland. Since they acquired the Queensland Gas Company (QGC)in 2008 , this has become one of their most important assets worldwide. It will be the world’s first project to turn coal seam gas into LNG. The gas, methane, is found in water in coal deposits 300-600 metres below ground. It needs to be pumped to the surface, separated out from the water, compressed and sent along a 540km pipe network to the port at Curtis Island, where it will be liquefied and exported to Asian markets.

Unlike other resources developments I’ve visited, CSG gas is widely dispersed. The company are currently drilling 2,000 wells. Eventually they will have 6000 wells across an area of some 4500 square kilometers. We visited one new well head and saw the huge drilling rig. It’s a massive undertaking involving some $20 billion investment from 2010-14, creating some 5000 construction jobs and 1000 full time jobs. Most of the spending is inevitably local, but there have also been some very significant contracts for UK suppliers like Murphy Pipe and Civil. My UKTI team are involved in a big project to bring opportunities in Australian oil and gas to the attention of the UK supply chain. And we are running webinars with helpful advice about the resources sector.

In contrast to the remote iron ore mine I visited in WA, much of the Surat basin is good farmland. So QGC has negotiated rent payments to the local farmers to station wells and pipelines on their land: once construction has been completed, the infrastructure does not seem particularly intrusive. In Australia, the actual underground resources belong to the government, so there will be major benefits to the national exchequer too. QGC are also being very careful to implement the best environmental practices, particularly where the development will involve “fracking” the rocks, using water and chemicals to break up the coal seams allowing the gas to be released.

Once again it was a fascinating reminder of the size of Australia and the scale of its natural resources.

About Paul Madden

Paul Madden has been the British Ambassador to Japan from January 2017. He was Additional Director for Asia Pacific at the FCO in 2015.He was British High Commissioner to Australia…

Paul Madden has been the British Ambassador to Japan from January 2017.

He was Additional Director for Asia Pacific at the FCO in 2015.He was British High Commissioner to Australia until February 2015. Prior to this he was British High Commissioner in Singapore from 2007-2011.

A career diplomat, he was previously Managing Director at UK Trade and Investment (2004-2006), responsible for co-ordinating and
implementing international trade development strategies to support
companies across a wide range of business sectors.

As Assistant Director of Information at the Foreign and Commonwealth
Office (2003-2004) he was responsible for public diplomacy policy,
including managing the FCO funding of the BBC World Service, the British
Council and the Chevening Scholarships programme. He led the team
responsible for the award-winning UK pavilion at the Aichi Expo in Japan
2005.

He was Deputy High Commissioner in Singapore from 2000-2003 and has
also served in Washington (1996-2000) and Tokyo (1988-92). Between
1992-96 he worked on EU enlargement and Environmental issues at the FCO
in London.

Before joining FCO he worked at the Department of Trade and Industry
(1980-87) on a range of industrial sectors and trade policy, including
two years as a minister’s Private Secretary.

He has an MA in Economic Geography from Cambridge University, an MBA
from Durham University, studied Japanese at London University’s School
of Oriental and African Studies, and is a Fellow of the Royal
Geographical Society. His first book, Raffles: Lessons in Business
Leadership, was published in 2003.

Married to Sarah, with three children, he was born in 1959, in Devon.