A representative of the oil and gas industry has hit back at suggestions from anti-coal seam gas campaigners that the extraction of CSG is dangerous and without benefit to the towns and cities they are located in.
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The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association chief operating officer for Eastern Australia, Paul Fennelly, said there is a lot of misinformation being spread about CSG mining and its impacts.
Mr Fennelly refuted suggestions from campaign groups such as Lock the Gate that the risk of water contamination is high. He also denied Australian gas prices are rising because companies preferred the lucrative export market.
"It is true that East Coast gas prices are rising, however the development of an export industry is not to blame - and any move to cut back on exports is clearly not the right solution," he said.
"Australia benefits when we export goods at world prices. That's not just true for gas; it's true for wine, wool and wheat.
"The best solution to higher gas prices is the production of more gas.
"Gas producers are today looking to develop NSW gas projects and deliver new supplies to the 1.3 million NSW natural gas consumers, many of them in country NSW."
There are other benefits for regional areas to come from the CSG industry, according to Mr Fennelly and he believes people should look at both sides of the story before making their mind up on the industry.
"Natural gas production is delivering enormous economic benefits not only to country towns but the national economy through royalty revenue," he said.
"This week the Brotherhood of St Laurence reported that more than 580,000 young Australians are now either underemployed or unemployed.
"In areas of country Queensland, where natural gas production from coal seams is well advanced, unemployment rates remain low while young people grab opportunities for meaningful employment in the gas industry or services contracted to industry."
Mr Fennelly said talk of leaks and contamination were blown out of proportion by opponents and he said suggestions that CSG extraction wells had a high fail rate were also inaccurate. He said the production of CSG in Australia over the last 20 years had been safe.
"Drilling and well construction are tightly regulated in Australia. The oil and gas industry has a strong understanding of the technologies involved as millions of wells have been drilled around the world in the last 160 years," he said.
