Mining billionaire Gina Rinehart criticized the Albanese government’s renewable energy strategy saying fossil fuels are Australia’s “rational” choice to keep the lights on as it sealed a huge gas deal.
Ms Rinehart’s company, Hancock Prospecting, announced on Thursday it would buy the Lockyer/North Erregulla conventional gas project located in the Perth Basin in Western Australia’s midwest as part of a $1.1 billion deal with the previous owner MinRes.
The Lockyer project greatly expands Hancock’s footprint in the Perth Basin, after the company purchased half of the adjacent West Erregulla gas field in 2023, giving it rights to potentially vast reserves of “high quality” oil and gas. “unexploded.
Ms Rinehart told Daily Mail Australia on Thursday that projects like this were critical to Australia’s future because “so-called renewable energy” can only produce electricity 10 to 25 per cent of the time solar energy takes and up to a third of the time that solar energy uses. wind.
“Gas can produce electricity much more reliably, even when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing,” said Ms. Rinehart, Hancock’s chief executive.
“Every rational observer recognizes the need for increased gas supply.”
He called renewable energy “so-called” because he stated that “they actually contain more minerals than fossil fuels, and those minerals must be constantly found and developed, they are not ‘renewed’ every year.”
He said the “old but true laws of supply and demand cannot be changed” as Australia is hungry for more and more gas as its share of electricity generation grows.
Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, has struck a gigantic billion-dollar deal to drill for oil and gas, saying they were the only “rational” energy source to keep the lights on.
“Without additional supply, prices will rise, hurting consumers and businesses who need gas as a reliable source of energy and baseload electricity generation,” Ms Rinehart said.
Rinehart, who is Australia’s richest person with a fortune estimated at more than $40 billion, said the federal government is steering investors away from natural resource projects, including gas.
“Reducing unnecessarily complex and duplicate procedures and excess regulations can unlock investment,” he said.
However, Ms Rinehart praised the WA Cook government for making “some efforts” to “reduce red tape and duplication”, as well as encouraging investment by allowing onshore gas to be sold as exports at higher prices.
Hancock prospect has purchased the Lockyer/North Erregulla conventional gas project in WA’s Perth Basin
The deal makes Hancock Prospecting one of the largest oil and gas rights holders off the WA coast.
With the state’s Collie coal-fired power station closing in 2030, Mr Rinehart said “gas generation will be more critical to keeping the lights on in WA”.
Hancock said his goal was to bring the Lockyer project into production more quickly to get the gas to market as soon as possible.
Mr Rinehart’s company will also enter into new joint partnerships with MinRes, founded and run by fellow billionaire Chris Ellison.
As part of the deal, Hancock will also buy half of MinRes’ 50 per cent remaining oil acreage in the Perth and Carnarvon basins, as well as half of MinRes’ ‘Explorer’ drilling platform.
This makes Hancock one of the largest oil and gas acreage holders on the WA coast.
“Hancock welcomes the opportunity to work alongside Chris Ellison and MinRes on our newly formed exploration joint ventures in the Perth and Carnarvon basins, where we hope to one day discover the next Lockyer together,” said Hancock chief executive Garry Korte.
Instead of renewables, Rinehart previously said Australia should follow in the footsteps of its “pro-energy security friend” who says “drill baby, drill” – a mantra used by Trump, who is running as the Republican candidate to win back the office he lost in 2020.
“We have plenty of natural gas in Australia, and if we decide not to use our vast coal deposits, let’s at least make use of our gas resources,” Ms Rinehart said.
‘Natural gas is necessary as a raw material for manufacturing and processing, in addition to its uses to generate electricity for homes, offices, hospitals, shopping centers, hotels, restaurants, traffic lights, schools, sports and entertainment centers.
While Ms Rinehart said that although Opposition Leader Peter Dutton’s plan to install more nuclear power involved a “proven” energy source, it was “more than a decade away” or even two decades due to ” bureaucracy and government approvals.
“Those who don’t want to use gas, decide not to use it, but those who want reliable energy, have it.”
“Let’s develop our enormous natural gas resources and provide all the supply we need,” Ms. Rinehart said.