Energy 101: We Ask The Dumb Questions So You Don't Have To

00;00;00;02 - 00;00;19;19
Unknown
Welcome to energy 101. Today we have two Aussies in the house again. I've been having a lot of Aussies on just FYI, but you know that was about offshore and the other one was a brewery brew owner here in Houston. But we got the guys from the real place and I'll show you that is the Northern Territory. That's Darwin, a hidden gem.

00;00;19;27 - 00;00;40;08
Unknown
As I first note in my documentary, I did that I love to bring up, but we have Aiden and Jason all the way from Darwin. And we're just going to get into what is going on over there. If you haven't heard, there's a little thing called the BW basin, and it is going to be something you hear more and more hopefully as the years come by.

00;00;40;11 - 00;01;03;05
Unknown
So, what the hell? What's going on? It's been two years. It's it's. Yeah, it's been a while since you've been out. Yeah, yeah. But it's I think the basin's probably getting to a really exciting point. We've seen, government come in and buy the first molecules of gas out of the basin. And so those contracts have been done, and they're the deals we've put together for government to help really unlock the basin.

00;01;03;05 - 00;01;23;15
Unknown
And, and that's put a lot of excitement into their, we expect both the exploration companies in the basin to hit this production in the middle of this year. I think it'll probably be a bit of a race between the two. And who gets that? That first, first foot across the line and, And it really start to crack the, the basin open.

00;01;23;17 - 00;01;43;20
Unknown
So, I think really once we get the that first gas and the first molecules into that, into that pipeline and sold in locally into the NT, everyone will start to see what the decline caves look like in the basin start to get us on on those wells. Really understand what the commercials look like. And then everyone can run the numbers after 12 months and we're off to the races.

00;01;43;23 - 00;02;03;18
Unknown
Yeah. So I mean, how does a basin like just now unlock in 2026 or, you know, however long this has been going on for like, you know, we've been drilling the Permian for over a century and I, you know, you see some moves up in, the northeast of the US right now with the shale revolution. So I'm going to assume it has something to do with that.

00;02;03;20 - 00;02;28;06
Unknown
Yeah, I'd say so. It's it's the they've known about the Beetaloo for, for a while now, at least a couple of decades, you know, from over McClendon. And Hess was out there for a while, moved into, a couple of Australian companies with most of the acreage there, Origin Energy, Pangaea Resources and a few others. And, there's been sort of this slow building of momentum, but I would call the momentum almost exponential.

00;02;28;06 - 00;02;50;04
Unknown
It kind of grows year on year. And we're at this really critical juncture right now where we've had the first 3000, made a laterals, drilled flow tested for the first couple. There's been another few drilled. Fracking is going to happen on those in the next couple of months. And the results have just been astounding. You know, Marcellus, top tier, Marcellus type, type performances.

00;02;50;04 - 00;03;27;01
Unknown
But which both operators out there, you're wearing one of the lovely hats, Blue Energy Australia, formerly Empire Energy, and Tamborine Resources, even one of the Australian mid-majors and Santos is really interested in doing some exploration drilling out there. Now, there's been a lot of, money and movement announced for their program. So I think I think a catalyst of, of different, elements, you know, the squeeze for natural gas in Asia and new basins opening up and who's going to supply the Asian markets, all the way from just the continual rapid advances of the shale industry here in North America?

00;03;27;04 - 00;03;43;14
Unknown
I think probably other thing, too, that's been a real, catalyst is, a lot of the work we did in the Northern Territory was around getting the, approvals in the regulatory regulatory environment. Right. And so, you at a nine when you were out there, they had a whole inquiry around how can we do this safely?

00;03;43;16 - 00;04;06;14
Unknown
I think one of the big differences in Australia compared to the US is you've been doing shale for for decades and decades, and we just don't have that learning in Australia. And so when we first started looking at the basin, and trying to understand what was potentially there, government really had to kind of work out, how do we get this out of the ground safely and, and be able to communicate that to the, to, the community.

00;04;06;20 - 00;04;26;29
Unknown
So that they had confidence in what was going on out there? Obviously conventional, you know, there's lots of conventional, plays in Australia, but this is the first kind of show development. And so I spent a couple of years really, working out what's the science I or those sorts of things that put in place a, a really strong regulatory environment that, everyone can get in behind.

00;04;26;29 - 00;04;44;18
Unknown
And if we meet those markers and, and, do what needs to be done, then we can extract the gas safely and, and really kind of pick up on the lessons that have been learned in the US over the last kind of, you know, many decades and the mistakes that have been made. Let's not make those again, and really give the community confidence that that we can do this safely.

00;04;44;18 - 00;05;07;05
Unknown
And, and really look after, the long term environment for, for the people in the territory. Yeah. When you talk about safety and stuff, like, are people concerned about fracking, specifically or just the land in general? Because, you know, I mean, I feel like you understand, like Australians are very conservative with their land and even that it's a whole wasteland there in the middle, like we want to protect it.

00;05;07;05 - 00;05;29;18
Unknown
And at the same time. Right. What exactly is the culture around that? It's it's it's Australian. We love our environment and our and natural environment and nature, and we do everything we can to protect that. But at the same time, our entire economy runs on resources, on mineral resources and, you know, and gas resources, with and and that's becoming more and more ingrained.

00;05;29;21 - 00;05;48;12
Unknown
It's interesting the, the, the beetaloo in in central Australia, it's kind of it's one of those unique things where it's, it's really rugged, rough country to some people, but absolutely beautiful to those toes. And the people that that live there. And in the Northern Territory, we just really enjoy the unique sort of different bio types to get around there.

00;05;48;12 - 00;06;09;10
Unknown
And a lot of it was we just want to make sure this is done right. You know, there's there's the probably incorrect stereotypes of how drilling happens. You know, the the all roughnecks out there throwing chains around pipe and there's oil flying everywhere. And and it's not it's not like that, you know, these for, for the rigs that are out there now, it's it's really safe.

00;06;09;12 - 00;06;26;04
Unknown
And, and the people who work those rigs and all that equipment, they care about the environment just as much as anyone else does. And so getting government to demonstrate that or government, you know, being able to demonstrate that to, to the public was a key part of the the inquiry that that happened, in the basin.

00;06;26;07 - 00;06;57;12
Unknown
I think one of the other things too, is like, in Queensland, they've got, coal seam gas, coal, coalbed methane is what you call it here in, in. Oh, gosh. Yeah. And so when that first kind of kicked off in Queensland, there were lots of, primary producers who, I would align up their rivers because, you know, and their and their dams and those kinds of things because there wasn't that hadn't kind of had, didn't have in place all the right kind of, protections and those sorts of things for the environment that's gotten so much better now, anyway, because they've learned the lessons and, and worked out what do

00;06;57;12 - 00;07;12;15
Unknown
we need to do to be able to get it out of the ground kind of safely. And so I think that kind of put a lot of, you know, that's not that's not great for, pastoralists and other people that are also using the land. And I think this is probably the key bit is it's, it's it's helping people understand this isn't an either or.

00;07;12;15 - 00;07;36;19
Unknown
This is, you can have multiple industries working together. I'm working the same bit of land for the most amount of value that ultimately gets fed back into the community through very jobs, through employment, through, business opportunities, all those kinds of things. And we can we can manage that, that dynamic, together. I think the other thing, too, is Australia has been has been built on, primary industry.

00;07;36;21 - 00;07;54;20
Unknown
You know, in the early days, we, we were our whole economy was off the, you know, the sheep's back is how we used to talk about it, which was, you know, big, large sheep farms and all those sorts of things. And so there's probably been this real build out culturally around how we make our money is off the off the land.

00;07;54;27 - 00;08;12;14
Unknown
And then probably the last kind of, you know, 50, 60 years it's really been that around resources and getting, you know, rocks out of the ground and exporting these into, into places that, that need it. And then perhaps more in the last couple of years, those couple of decades, it's really been about gas extraction, LNG export and those sorts of things.

00;08;12;14 - 00;08;29;25
Unknown
And probably what isn't well known is like where the third largest LNG exporter in the world in Australia. And so our real market and our real piece of the market, the way that we fulfill is that, that Asian LNG demand and making sure that they have certainty of their supply for, for their energy needs.

00;08;29;28 - 00;08;47;14
Unknown
Yeah. I want to get into the product. And you know, the use of all this energy that you'll have, right? First off, there's a couple of vocab words we got to cover. Yes, you said tio, which is short for traditional owners, which is the more common term to refer to indigenous folks up in the Northern Territory for some certain reason.

00;08;47;14 - 00;09;18;26
Unknown
We can get into that later. And he said, pastoralist, which is ranchers, country rednecks, you know, ranch farm owners, land owners, we can do a glossary of terms. Yeah, yeah. How's it go? That translation? Yeah, yeah. Yes. Just a little translation there. So let's get into what's going on with this energy. So, there's a few understandings that I feel like, as general to me, which is, you know, first off, we have all the offshore on in Western Australia off, you know, off Perth and stuff.

00;09;18;29 - 00;09;38;16
Unknown
You got a big history of known for mining minerals, you know, point at the element table and you know, y'all are mining it over there right. And now but I'm not really sure like what they're doing for land drilling and stuff like that. But it sounds like you'll have plenty of resources, plenty of room. And the jobs are abundant and everything.

00;09;38;21 - 00;10;00;02
Unknown
But then there's also some kind of, motif and headlines coming to the energy security in Australia for everyone who lives on East Coast, and that it's expensive, but like, how is it expensive? And an issue that sometimes when, you know, people are people are living in like what seems like a Paradise, like what is exactly the truth and what's happening over there?

00;10;00;06 - 00;10;20;15
Unknown
Yeah, this is and this is the the really tricky question because some of it comes down to where your belief system is on the political spectrum. Some of it comes down to, you know, what your views are on if you work in the resources sector, but ultimately it comes down to, policy and commerce. Right. There are plenty of resources there.

00;10;20;17 - 00;10;49;03
Unknown
There's, a changes in policy that happens with different governments as they come in about what they're going to regulate, what aren't they going to regulate, where are they going to invest in supporting industry and where they aren't? And, there's always been enough gas coming out of the ground. But for a long time there was gas coming out of, the basin called Otway, which is sort of south of, of, Victoria in the Bass Strait.

00;10;49;06 - 00;11;13;07
Unknown
And those fields were. Yeah, Exxon was one of the largest players in those fields. And they're rapidly depleting. And that's all of a sudden put a lot of constraints on the energy, on the energy market on the East Coast and everyone's then turned to Queensland where the big, coal seam gas, we call it CSG, production is and there's, there's three LNG facilities in a place called Gladstone.

00;11;13;09 - 00;11;36;29
Unknown
I think that's six trains in total with three different players there. And they built out a lot of LNG capacity where they were just exporting that gas because they didn't need to put that back into a lot of that, back into the domestic market. And there's a few other basins around the Moomba, you know, Moomba, which is a Santos, project in, in the Cooper Basin, had been supplying sort of everything on in a steady state.

00;11;36;29 - 00;12;00;02
Unknown
And there was a lot of money and policy put toward, renewables. So solar and wind, and, you know, from a purely from the physics side of it, let's take any, any sort of sentimentality around the environment. When the, when the sun isn't shining and when there's clouds and when the wind isn't blowing, you're renewables don't work.

00;12;00;06 - 00;12;26;18
Unknown
And then you have to look to batteries, and batteries are extremely expensive to be able to firm up to the level of electricity, reliability that we as a society, are after. And so I think one of the challenges when you have a change in government at a federal level is a lot of the some of the politicians and the policy providers and the staffers haven't necessarily lived the journey of of energy policy in power, in government.

00;12;26;18 - 00;12;46;14
Unknown
And they can take a little bit of time to, to lead up to that. And so I think it it's, people call it a policy failure. I don't I think it's just been a direction which has generally been coming from, you know, a good place around. We need to go headlong into the renewables, forget fossil fuels.

00;12;46;14 - 00;13;10;29
Unknown
That's the future. And then, you know, the reality of physics and commerce caught up in. And now we're in this really tricky spot, I think. I think probably it's fair to say, you know, it's a conflation of issues. You have, jurisdiction. That's using a lot of the gas. They're used to a field that is reaching its end of life, and that's that's the reach, end of life, you know, with that, with a lack of development, because we've got this plan for transition.

00;13;11;01 - 00;13;30;03
Unknown
Right. When Ukraine gets invaded and gas prices go through the roof around, around the world. And so everyone suddenly has this pressure on them around. Hang on a second, where are we getting this energy from? And I haven't invested in the exploration side. And so they go, oh, well, we're exporting all this gas. This is this is crazy.

00;13;30;03 - 00;13;53;02
Unknown
And it's just, the outcome of a successive number of independent decisions that have all conflated into the same issue. I think the really cool thing, though, in the end, is we've got this abundant amount of gas. It's way more than we can possibly use locally. Our local, production, local kind of, energy requirements are sort of, you know, 60, 70 scuffs, a day.

00;13;53;02 - 00;14;24;25
Unknown
That's that's it. Because we're such a small population. And so then it's really we are an export jurisdiction. We need to feed into those LNG markets to make this work. We can easily support Australia's demand needs, if that's what, if that's what they need, and build a pipeline over, over to the East Coast. But fundamentally, when you get into the mechanics of it all, and understand what's actually going on below, you know, below, just that noisy headline type issue, you start to see the fundamental structures are really there to make this basin work.

00;14;24;27 - 00;14;45;27
Unknown
Right. So what's the current temperature check going on in Australia as a nation? Like is the energy security thing in the headlines or everyone is chilling right now. Energy security is definitely in the in the headlines. And it's front and center for them in the NT. We've had both sides of politics supporting development of gas in the, in the beetaloo.

00;14;45;27 - 00;15;16;22
Unknown
And so the kind of political thought of should the beetaloo happen or not, you know, it's perhaps it doesn't carry those same kind of challenges it might on the East coast, but the Australian government's going to have to come up with, with a solution about what that looks like. Ultimately, it means more supply if you make rules around constraining, existing, production and, and those existing contracts that are sending gas to Japan and Korea and those sorts of things, then you can have Japan and Korean diplomats knocking on the door.

00;15;16;24 - 00;15;39;28
Unknown
You know, if the Commonwealth government and saying, hey, hang on a second. We've we've invested, we've brought all this gas, we've got contracts in place. What are you doing superseding those and, and and outlaw outlawing them effectively to to force demand in domestically really what you need to do is bring on more supply. And you're right at the prime point of when Beetaloo starts to come online to be able to support that, that that new supply that's, that's needed.

00;15;40;01 - 00;15;55;13
Unknown
And so that kind of becomes the natural, the natural solution. As the out of there, I'll pull up the map and it'll be a graphic straight from the, documentary because I have the top 16 cities with Darwin being the 16th, and it's all the way up there in the top. And then you got most of everyone on the southeast.

00;15;55;20 - 00;16;22;10
Unknown
And when all this gas starts coming, you know, what's the decision? Do we finish the infrastructure to connect Darwin all the way up here to all these cities that are like, you know, 20, 30 million people, right? Or does the NT start selling up north to what is like 3 billion people in like a circle, right. Like they have the global South, you have, Asia, all of South Asia, like they are ready to take it.

00;16;22;10 - 00;16;44;11
Unknown
And there's already LNG ports built in Darwin, like y'all are a city of, in a state of a quarter million less people. And y'all, y'all are about to be like a superpower of energy. It seems like it's like, realistically, what is going to happen in the next ten years. Is, is y'all going to work together with the rest of the country or there's enough for both, right?

00;16;44;11 - 00;17;09;16
Unknown
That's okay. There's enough for both. But but the East Coast's problem and that is kind of their problem. We're ready. We're there as a jurisdiction. We can help them. We can support them. But it doesn't necessarily behoove us to build a pipeline to a jurisdiction that, might not want the gas, might not want the long term over the long term or, you know, you have different political kind of, persuasions based on the three states.

00;17;09;16 - 00;17;30;13
Unknown
If you say Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria and Queensland in and of itself is generally okay because it that's the, the, the coal seam gas there. But yeah, I guess the answer is we'd love to help out fellow Australians. And you know that's just from our view. And I think I speak for most of the people in the Northern Territory, but there has to be a little bit of coordination and collaboration to be able to get that gas going there.

00;17;30;13 - 00;17;56;28
Unknown
And we see companies in Australia midstream as to, putting proposals together to say we can get gas in the market, we just need some help. And that would be the logical step. So you got API that, already in early stage planning. So building a large pipeline into that East Coast market that supports their pipeline network into the rest of the east coast of Australia, I think it also provides an opportunity to backfill the LNG facilities in Queensland.

00;17;57;00 - 00;18;24;10
Unknown
And so I think if the commercials of that kind of transaction can, can be worked through and landed, great, it'd be fantastic if that doesn't need any sort of government support to make that project happen, and I can make it work commercially. And then in the Northern Territory, it's absolutely sending gas north into the existing LNG facilities and then probably building out additional LNG facilities in Darwin to export into into Southeast Asia in the Northern Territory.

00;18;24;10 - 00;18;43;01
Unknown
That's the market we can control. We can control what's going on in the northern Territory and exporting gas to Southeast Asia. And so I think what we're trying to convey is that's the that's the pathway, to market that, where so like 100% focused on and I think we're more than happy to support the rest of Australia.

00;18;43;03 - 00;18;58;08
Unknown
They have to help solve the problems that they have in terms of getting gas into that, into the rest of Australia. If they want to do it and they're ready to do it right. We're here to help. But I can't solve your problem for you. You need to be able to solve your own problem, and then I can solve the supply issue.

00;18;58;10 - 00;19;15;02
Unknown
Yeah, it sounds simple enough. It's right there. It's the it's the classic. It can lead a horse to water. Right. So yeah. You know, and we're very much, we're very much as a jurisdiction want to want to help them. And APA is a great company. They're taking a big step out there to really try and help provide solutions.

00;19;15;02 - 00;19;30;15
Unknown
The other midstream is that are in Australia. You know Gemini AJ they all want to do this. They say it is really important for energy security and I want to play their their part. And that's probably an interesting thing is the midstream is have all got their own plans about how to get gas into the east coast of Australia.

00;19;30;15 - 00;19;46;13
Unknown
And we've got solutions for that. And then it's just working out the right commercials of which ones make sense. And I think if, if they can get one that makes sense, where they can get off takers and all those sorts of things at the other end of the pipeline to underwrite that, that investment, then we're good to go.

00;19;46;20 - 00;20;05;09
Unknown
It's certainly not a shortage of midstream players that, that are wanting to be able to send gas into the East Coast is more a question of making sure the buyers on the East Coast are in a position to enter in the contracts that help underwrite that. It was the tricky thing as well during Covid. I'm not sure if they had it here where, you know, energy prices, gas prices plummeted.

00;20;05;11 - 00;20;26;28
Unknown
And then, you know, some of the the consumers wanted to try and play the market and try and play the spot game market and unless you're an internationally sophisticated gas trader, playing the spot market for gas can be really, really troublesome. And so a few, a few businesses and industries found themselves in a really difficult spot when Russia invaded Ukraine and they were all of a sudden very short.

00;20;26;28 - 00;20;52;21
Unknown
And they those contracts didn't exist. That underpinned additional, you know, additional drill out and underpin additional pipeline infrastructure. And so there's a little bit of catching up to be done in that in that regard as well. I think I should just say just because we mentioned the C-word. I think there's also a misconception that, you know, during during that period, Australia was kind of lockdown and in the end it wasn't in the NT.

00;20;52;26 - 00;21;29;01
Unknown
We never missed an LNG cargo at all. During that period. The town kept running, the state kept running. It kept delivering on all those energy requirements. Very different to kind of the rest of, you know, some parts of Australia that were, significantly constrained in what they could and couldn't do. And so I think there's a I guess this is probably the, the key bit of, of, of understanding of being out here in, in the US and really starting to talk to players around, their understanding of the beetaloo and those sorts of things is, is there's a lot of misconceptions and, and helping people kind of decode how you actually operate in

00;21;29;01 - 00;21;53;09
Unknown
Australia. There's a very clear kind of pathway in all that. It's just a different kind of language than maybe what people are used to. And that's kind of the function that we see ourselves being able to help people with is how to do that translation and how to understand what's actually going on and what's real, what's just, you know, made up and, and, and what's noise and be able to do that translation so that can make investments into the beetaloo with confidence.

00;21;53;09 - 00;22;10;09
Unknown
Yeah. I like to call it what's a headline and what's a hard fact. You know. And there is a difference between the two. And, and when you're on the other side of the, you know, the big pond, it can become a little bit tricky for a, you know, American businesses, investors, service providers to say what's, you know, what's the real and what's what's the noise?

00;22;10;11 - 00;22;34;24
Unknown
Let's take a step back. Y'all actually worked for the NZ government, which means y'all are probably in our in the office when, the moratorium was created and taken away. Right. So, I mean, this is something I like, I feel like is a big deal that isn't really brought up. But, you can compare to here, like in New York, we have the state of New York has banned fracking.

00;22;34;26 - 00;22;56;05
Unknown
It's, under moratorium. And the Northern Territory did the same thing, and but it was lifted and and I've done research and like that, like this technically has not happened before. So why don't you give us a little background of working in the Parliament? Whatever y'all call it over there? Beautiful, beautiful, venue. The the building in the building.

00;22;56;08 - 00;23;18;00
Unknown
We we we didn't get to work everyday. We we were bureaucrats and politicians. The politicians get the nice, nice building. We will. Although our offices were pretty good, I can't, I can't. Yeah. Give me a whole recap of like what what that was like and what, what's going on up till today. So, in 2016, we had, change in government in the Northern Territory.

00;23;18;02 - 00;23;46;08
Unknown
The Labor Party came in and the labor is, it's a bit of a unique thing to some of the Commonwealth, countries around the world whereby, it's usually it's established as the sort of union movement, the political arm of the union movement. And you have a bit of a swathe of, of, political persuasions within that, you have some people who are left and you have some people who are right, but ultimately they generally sit left of center, as a, as a party.

00;23;46;10 - 00;24;14;01
Unknown
They were they saw the momentum that was happening, for, for the beetaloo for, for fracking. And, what they implemented was a moratorium to understand it better. And I think that's the really important part. And to give them that kudos, it was never a a backdoor way of implementing a ban. It was no, we just need to take our time to understand if this can be done safely and, and economically viably.

00;24;14;03 - 00;24;36;22
Unknown
And so let me interrupt you and say that I love that that happened like that, because that's exactly what should be happening now with the data centers here. Everyone's panicking and these towns, one by one, or are approving or disapproving. Hundreds and maybe even thousands of people are just showing up. And chaos is happening with these protests and stuff.

00;24;36;22 - 00;24;58;28
Unknown
And it's like exhausting. It's like, yeah, like everyone's confused. They want answers. They're going to keep coming out and making a buzz, trying to cancel it, slowing everything down. When you have your government, you have the ability to just stop it, slow things down, say, hey, let's put a ban on this for six months a year. You know, all this huge stuff takes time and it should.

00;24;59;01 - 00;25;16;15
Unknown
Let's take a look at it, get the research, have people come in and state their facts, and then we'll make a decision and I guess everyone in America just loves to deal with chaos because we do not handle things like that. But it's the ultimate. You take a step back or stand standstill to actually take a couple of steps forward.

00;25;16;15 - 00;25;55;21
Unknown
And that's what happened through the moratorium. Independent, retired judge came in to oversee all the the scientific the hydraulic fracturing is called it was the scientific inquiry. They had information and evidence presented from both sides, from independent scientists, from the CSIRO, which is the Commonwealth Science Agency for for for Australia. And came up with a series of recommendations that said, this can be done and it can be done safely and the risks can be managed if you follow these recommendations, 136 recommendations, two of them got split up, and I think it ended up at 138, all of which were implemented.

00;25;55;28 - 00;26;15;11
Unknown
And the industry was allowed to proceed again by a left leaning government because they recognized that they followed the science, they trusted the science, and they looked at the regulations and said, yes, we can, we can do this safely. And there's components of that that, really where we don't have enough research yet in this area. And so we need to do some more research in that space.

00;26;15;14 - 00;26;31;12
Unknown
One of the things that kind of came out of that was, let's do some baseline environmental assessment in terms of what's going on in the area. And you can actually measure, okay, well, how's this impacting further down the line. And you've actually got a baseline then to go hang on a second. I think we need to tweak what we're doing and improve what we're doing.

00;26;31;15 - 00;27;06;18
Unknown
And I think this is the really important thing is US shale has evolved over, you know, 70 years. Australia is at this starting point in the Northern Territory that there's this real sort of, toddler, you know, newborn kind of stage and it's how do you take these lessons from all the people that have done this before, pick those up and then help continue to kind of carry those forward, and we'll get to learn, you know, over the coming decades, the beetaloo will be the same in many aspects of of shale basins in North America and will have its own, its own differences as well, in terms of, you know, how it

00;27;06;18 - 00;27;33;24
Unknown
works and how it operates. And the difference is that that, will start to show up and we'll start to learn about, you know, what's the best way to extract the most amount of gas out of the, out of the wells and, and get those into, into the markets that need it, I think. And to on the, on the data center piece, a lot of the work that was done in that, in that, Schreiber, which is what is called strategic, regional, environmental baseline assessment and government, we love we love acronyms.

00;27;33;24 - 00;27;52;09
Unknown
We love it. And even on on the outside, we still love it. And it's a good kind of scape. It, that's provided this architecture for a whole bunch of other industries, including data centers, you know, so we know how much water is in the basin. We know what the environmental baselines look like. We understand, you know, air modeling and and all of that.

00;27;52;09 - 00;28;13;03
Unknown
So again, it was very much what was seen as, frustrating. Stand still is actually going to propel us as a jurisdiction and as an industry much quicker than what you would see in other areas. It's like go, go slow in order to go fast. Yeah, slow down, learn how to walk, get the walking down, and then you can run and sprint and all these sort of things that are going to flow from that.

00;28;13;04 - 00;28;34;18
Unknown
That's that's exactly where we're at. So when the moratorium got lifted, we're all still in the office. So, so, when the merger started and partially so. Oh, so in the meantime got lifted, and the and and then the recommend everyone was focused on implementing the those right. 136 recommendations when they all, were implemented.

00;28;34;18 - 00;28;54;22
Unknown
That's when we were starting to tie in the, the buying the first gas molecules in the and the contracts that were, that were then, being put in place to really unlock the basin and, and to be honest, having those contracts in place, having the first molecules come in locally has been a, a really great, positioning for the basin, everyone.

00;28;54;22 - 00;29;14;06
Unknown
Then we'll get certainty on what the decline curves are on the wells be able to flow test those governments, a really good counterparty in order to manage the risks that comes along with that. I think it would have been, much more difficult for, the exploration companies to be able to sell that gas, you know, into perhaps more regular, regular markets.

00;29;14;08 - 00;29;37;04
Unknown
And so, I think that really sets the basin up to, to be in a really good position over these are this, this next kind of 12, 18 months. And absolutely. Kudos to the to the current government because what had what had happened in, 2024, there was a change in government in the Northern Territory. I don't recall who was chief minister or which party was in power when you, Alister.

00;29;37;06 - 00;30;13;05
Unknown
So Alister is, or he's the, he's the chair of the gas taskforce, probably when you, visiting he's now the, CEO Department of Mining and Energy, which is kind of industry development form, you know, the mining resources, energy sector. And the regulator sits within that department. So, Alice, a mainstay and one of the one of the best public servants that exists in the Northern Territory, without question, from, from the actual politician perspective, I, I think it was great to see the labor government, the left leaning government start to work to put, you know, to accept and put these deals into place and to approve these deals and for,

00;30;13;08 - 00;30;30;23
Unknown
to to purchase the gas and for the CLP government that's in power now, which is sort of the conservative right wing government to come in and not play politics and say this, this is what's needed. You know, these contracts, are going to underpin industry development. And, you know, they're really big about sort of economic certainty and growth.

00;30;30;23 - 00;30;53;26
Unknown
And they've just leant in to industry development. So kind of, you know, kudos to them as well to come in and, and not play any of the politics and just get on with it. So the moratorium is lifted and it's like, hey, we took a break. We proved it. You know, back to action. And now we got all these companies coming in and, you know, like you said, molecules are out of the ground ready to go.

00;30;53;28 - 00;31;16;06
Unknown
What is what is the public still doing? You know, obviously people are still against it. How do you deal with the it's like, hey, we we played your game. We take we took a look and now we're going to produce, we're going to make money. We're going to help this state grow, the city grow. Like how do you how do you deal with these people who are on a contradicting how just energy security works?

00;31;16;08 - 00;31;32;25
Unknown
I think I think at the moment the there's still a really small pocket of people who, it wouldn't matter what you said. The sky is blue and they're like, you know, and they'd go outside and check, and then look at a blue sky and tell you it was right. Not quite blue. Yeah. Turquoise. Yeah. That's it.

00;31;32;27 - 00;32;02;24
Unknown
Yeah. And so I think there's always going to be pockets of the community. A lot of that are like that. I think when you think look across the broad, section of the community, everyone's excited. So the, the workers, the people that operate and own businesses, the people that work in those businesses, the people that, really wanting to are really wanting to see this basin develop and they're all trying to work out how do I position my business locally to be able to, get a get a piece of that action?

00;32;02;26 - 00;32;22;20
Unknown
There's so many, small and micro businesses that then feed into the larger, businesses in the ante and so, you know, we allow trades guys run their own little, little, subcontract contracting companies. They contract to, you know, a bigger player and all that sort of stuff. And so they're all just excited about what's coming through the pipeline.

00;32;22;22 - 00;32;42;26
Unknown
How real is it? And I think they're all starting to see that there actually is kind of something here. And I think once those first molecules start to flow, you know, really crystallize for them. We've had a couple of, instances where, gas supply has stopped, you know, getting fed into the, into the, into the gas fired generators in the NT.

00;32;43;01 - 00;33;00;13
Unknown
And so people have kind of had, a moment of shock of you know, power has been out for a few hours, and, and, we need to kind of solve this now. We can't be reliant on just on renewables and those sorts of things. And so I think that's really helped kind of crystallize that. This needs to happen.

00;33;00;15 - 00;33;24;26
Unknown
I think also in the Northern Territory, people are understanding more about how our economy works. And so economically we're really reliant on, the, benefits from the Australian government flowing through to the, through to the Northern Territory. And that really helps kind of keep our economy alive. And so people are saying this is really the opportunity to be able to start to stand on our own two feet.

00;33;24;26 - 00;33;44;26
Unknown
And when we do that, we can generate more of our own sales revenue and all these sorts of things, and we can be a better, in a better position as a jurisdiction to start to make our own decisions without sort of having to rely on, the generosity of Canberra at, you know, help support, you know, what we're doing day to day in terms of the level of services we need to be able to provide to the people.

00;33;44;28 - 00;34;21;20
Unknown
I to echo what Jason was saying, it, it's, it's a small part of the population that, still opposed to it. And fundamentally, I think that will get even smaller as the industry grows and develops and the benefits continue to flow. And, and, you know, a lot of the, a lot of the noise honestly comes from outside of the Northern Territory now comes from you know, the East Coast and some of the extremely left wing parts of the, the East coast or, you know, heavily environmentally focused parts of the, of the, of the West, East Coast, in, in I'd say the vast majority of Northern Territorians are okay with

00;34;21;20 - 00;34;49;01
Unknown
it. They, they understand what the economic benefits it's going to bring. And very importantly, the traditional owners have all agreed to it. They've signed the, indigenous land use agreements to allow for now appraisal gas to be sold into, into the market and to be put into, into the pipelines, which is a great sign that, you know, there are a majority of traditional owners in that area who afford it's on their traditional lands, and that they've approved it.

00;34;49;05 - 00;35;16;00
Unknown
And fundamentally, the these molecules that the inter government's brought, if they didn't buy those molecules, they're buying LNG, emergency gas from those LNG producers in, in Darwin. So they're buying off Jkm spot price or they're buying it out of the east coast market of Australia, which is very constrained at the moment and even worse. And so it's like we, we, we need this gas to keep our lights on.

00;35;16;02 - 00;35;50;07
Unknown
And so that starts to shift everyone's view about, oh, hang on a second. This is an, a nice to have. This is a this is a must have. The field that we were relying on for our domestic gas supply was meant to last until 2034. And as of today, it's it's it's completely depleted. And so, you know, as that was declining, that really became the impetus to be able to, purchase, you know, additional gas out of the, out of the Beetaloo basin and, you know, definitely supported by the older gas fields in Central Australia as well, which is great.

00;35;50;09 - 00;36;08;10
Unknown
I heard that before, where y'all are running out of gas when y'all are sitting on top of gas at the same time. But hopefully that's all the change and your supply yourselves eventually. Yeah, that's that's the goal. Yeah. We've we've got a we've got an existing onshore gas field down in Central Australia and some really reliable producers down there.

00;36;08;10 - 00;36;42;17
Unknown
But it's a different scale and that we're talking about and the Beetaloo is, is a good opportunity to kind of diversify and make sure we've got a diversified mix. We've seen exactly what happens when we rely too heavily on, on one field. And, and, you know, now it's the case of building out the infrastructure. And even again, I get, it's very seldom done by governments where, the Northern Territory government has provided, guarantee for the, construction of a the first, compression and processing facility in the beta low.

00;36;42;17 - 00;37;06;24
Unknown
So B low energy bought one and refurbished one from the east coast and Tambo and were building their own. And the Northern Territory government stepped in to help get that financed and put across with with a guarantee which is unusual for a government generally in Australia. And so this government really leant into it and said, yeah, we want to back this industry in, where we're going to do this, we're going to use our balance sheet to help.

00;37;06;26 - 00;37;26;07
Unknown
I think we need to do like a big picture of everything going on. I mean, you got Darwin all the way up there and, you know, compared to Midland, where you kind of brought it up like this is kind of the only thing going on over there, right? Like is this, this gas, this energy. But you know, why is Darwin even there in the first place?

00;37;26;07 - 00;37;43;27
Unknown
And I mean, the answer is World War two, right? Like, can we can we kind of start from the reason why the hell the cities all the way up there, and then we can kind of like, tie in to, like, what's going on now because, the comparison to Midland is not fully, thought out because Midland is, literal shithole.

00;37;43;27 - 00;38;06;23
Unknown
Darwin is a beautiful oasis. It really is. Yeah. But first off, like, just, you know, I guess, you know, step away from the energy like this. Why is Darwin all the way up there by itself? Well, you start with the traditional owners across the coast have been there for tens of thousands of years and done, you know, lived the way that they lived and even were trading with the moccasins from Indonesia.

00;38;06;23 - 00;38;25;10
Unknown
So there's actually is the, the the history of trade, the international trade work networks has been there for a long time. You're more you're a long a territory and I am. So I'll get the nuggets there of you all are from there. I've been there 30 years now. So all my adult life I've lived in the NT.

00;38;25;12 - 00;38;56;11
Unknown
And we're right on the doorstep of Asia. And so obviously, you know, during World War two, huge defense space out there. And, and defense kind of set up, interestingly, it's one of the first places that were bombed in Australia, you know, and we commemorate that every, every year, every year, the bombing of, of of Darwin during World War Two when there's a us, the USS Perry, that's, was was sunk out there, in the Darwin harbor, you know, that was here helping with the defense of Australia during that time.

00;38;56;13 - 00;39;16;13
Unknown
And, you know, the fact that you got to tell everyone. Yeah, more more bombs dropped there than in Pearl Harbor. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. No one talks about it. No, no. Yeah. The bombing imagery in Darwin is is awesome. The way I'll commemorate it. I can't say that word. Including the corners of the parliament building being bombs, like, built into the structure.

00;39;16;14 - 00;39;34;12
Unknown
I love it like it's such a it's such a nice touch. It's there. It's a really great experience. The bombing of Darwin experience and some of the military museums. But anyone who's visiting Darwin, you've got to go and say that and really get, at the bombing of Darwin experience. Add on the warfare. Did you get to sleep with the the 3D headsets on and see all the actual bombing as it was happening?

00;39;34;13 - 00;40;02;23
Unknown
It's so fantastic. It's terrifying. If you, you know, if you really get into it. But a really good representation of just how brutal that was. Yeah, it's an extraordinary history. Like, Austin Ash was, administrate, you know, many decades ago and also, Supreme Court judge and federal court judge and stuff. And, and hearing him before he passed away, he kind of talk about he came up as an airman during World War Two, met his wife.

00;40;02;23 - 00;40;32;02
Unknown
They and, you know, stayed and so settled their family there. And hearing him kind of talk about what the place was like back then, during that period of, of the war and those sorts of things, you know, Harry's out on the Tiwi Islands, which is an Aboriginal, community now. And I, you know, I know has always been, but he was he was posted out there watching the planes fly over and and calling in, you know, hey, this is what's going on here and, and getting the defenses organized and all that kind of stuff.

00;40;32;02 - 00;40;57;26
Unknown
It's just an extraordinary rich history of, of defense and being right on the doorstep of Asia. We are, fundamentally kind of focused towards Asia and the Asian markets. And, and so that's kind of how we've carved out, I think, this really unique difference from the rest of Australia. It's hot up there. And so really it's people that love the place that end up staying there and really kind of turning it into something.

00;40;57;28 - 00;41;24;03
Unknown
And it's become a really like a really strong town of opportunity. And so, one of the things lots of people will say is that I'd never get the experience and the exposure to just extraordinary things that I get in the Northern Territory and in Darwin. I just wouldn't get that anywhere else in Australia. And so the people that can kind of stand the heat and, and are willing to kind of lean in and get stuff done, they're the ones that live in and survive up there and thrive up there.

00;41;24;03 - 00;41;44;03
Unknown
And, and those that perhaps, get a bit weak at the knees. They'll stay a couple of years and, and decide to, to get out. So it's kind of become the real culture of the place. Defense has been a really, really big, cornerstone of, of all that. And then, you know, we start to get into sort of the resource development and those sorts of things.

00;41;44;10 - 00;42;05;03
Unknown
Well, and cattle, you know, cattle has been a big one. And my understanding is that's what sort of first put Darwin as a place as a, you know, with the vestiges, abattoirs there prior, well, prior to, to World War two and I, the city sort of built out from that and then kind of really took it, you know, the big steps, you know, during, during World War two is the northern base.

00;42;05;03 - 00;42;31;00
Unknown
And so agriculture is a big is a big industry and of of great importance to the Northern Territory. But the, the largest part of our economic story is, is resources mining, mining and energy, basically. Yeah, there's a few things. There's the energy, there's the strategic position of where you are, where your country. Like what? Like I guess the, Southeast Asia is relatively peaceful right now on a world scale.

00;42;31;05 - 00;42;49;26
Unknown
But like, if things are ever ugly, like Darwin is right there to protect the rest of their country, right? So that's a that's always something worth investing in, right? Absolutely. And then the third thing you mentioned is the cattle, which was a fun piece of trivia I got to learn. First off, there's wild cattle everywhere in the NT.

00;42;49;29 - 00;43;17;00
Unknown
They're like and they're like they're like these Brahmas. They're like white and they're very humpy. Oh, the Brahman cattle. Yeah. Are they Brahma, Brahma, Brahman. Okay. Because we have Brahmas here and they look very similar. And I learned that there's a industry where they fly helicopters and they get the free cattle and make them run into a trap when they got, when a guy, a local was telling me about this because you go out there, you go start driving down south towards like Daly Waters.

00;43;17;03 - 00;43;32;09
Unknown
And you know, it's just nothing but dirt road and or your freshly new highway. Like one road. Yeah. And you can see the cattle out in the side and then you can see the helicopters flying around. And so I'm like, you got to ask the question. I have to get it filled in and I'm like, man, this is it.

00;43;32;09 - 00;43;46;28
Unknown
He's you know, so he tells me how it works. Two helicopters fly and someone's on the ground with like an RV. And yeah, I was like, what the. There should be like a show about this. And he's like, oh, there it is. There is. Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of that's a lot of that's mustering. So they might not necessarily be wild cattle.

00;43;46;28 - 00;44;05;18
Unknown
They might be cattle that are just grazing on a station. But the stations are hundreds of thousands of acres. And so I think that's, you know, that's the right way to say so. Some of these stations are bigger than European nations, right? Like and and I mean, a horse did get pretty, pretty tuckered out if you had to go in muster, like the way in the size that they muster.

00;44;05;18 - 00;44;22;28
Unknown
So they had the cattle, the mustering, choppers that they call them, and they ran them all up, and then they'll be out there on the, the four wheelers kind of getting them all into, into the herd to be able to then, you know, get out and and export. Yeah. The, the big wild sort of bovine up there.

00;44;22;29 - 00;44;39;27
Unknown
Water buffalo introduced water buffalo. And did you make it out to, to Kakadu at all when you were there? No, but that's like the, recreational like tour. It's one of the most beautiful. Like, it's like a waterfall and hiking. It's like beautiful. And it's not that far from Darwin, right? Yeah. It's probably 2 or 3 hour drive out to.

00;44;39;29 - 00;45;06;00
Unknown
There's a town in there called Jabiru. Yeah. I mean, it's comparable to, like, Utah. You fly into Vegas or Salt Lake City and then you go in to 2 or 3 hours to go explore the national parks. I it'd be very similar. Yeah. And Kakadu has lots and lots of buffalo out there and, but they're kind of water buffalo all over, you know, northern, Northern Territory and, and, you know, if there's a fair few hunters out there who, you know, in the Northern Territory like to go and hunt, you know, different things.

00;45;06;00 - 00;45;28;13
Unknown
And water buffalo is one of the ones that they can hunt. And in certain times when they're not, when they're not hunting crocodile. Well, I heard y'all take out a quarter million crocs a year. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So the croc industry is huge in the NT. So, we have, a number of, crocodile farms. So the guys get out there, they collect the eggs, like, in in the wild.

00;45;28;16 - 00;45;46;12
Unknown
That's where you think mustering is fun? Yeah, that's, that's this is a whole nother level hanging from a helicopter side of a helicopter as it's hovering above a croc nest. Yeah. Pull the the radar and pull the eggs out so you'll be in a basket. You know, they'll drop you on top of a, a, a crocodile nest.

00;45;46;14 - 00;46;09;26
Unknown
They will keep it. Have a guy keeping an eye out for the mama crocodile. They'll then collect all the eggs they've got. Mark the eggs as they put them in the, into the, into the cooler box, to make sure they stay in the same direction. Then I get put in to go back to the farm, get put into the incubator, get grown out, and then, all those crocodile skins, then get sold to Hermes to make, cool handbags.

00;46;09;28 - 00;46;34;00
Unknown
So, it's, it's an amazing industry in of itself of. And it's probably a really good, capture of the essence of the NT Hunter. This this. Wow. Very rugged, wild ruggedness. But then also like, delivering high end, high quality products into, high end, high quality markets. And it's at the core because they're like an they're like a, pest, like there's like a billion of these.

00;46;34;00 - 00;46;57;04
Unknown
Well, so they're they're still protected. You can't hunt legally. You can't hunt crocodiles in the wild. So the crocodiles that are getting, that are getting, that are used all come from farms. The only times that they will, will, hunt a crocodile in the wild is if there's a case of, a crocodile croc attack and it's, you know, deemed to be, you know, a man eater or dangerous.

00;46;57;04 - 00;47;12;12
Unknown
They'll go at that. Even the crocs that might be up near Darwin, up in the harbor. They set traps for them, and then they try and relocate on the challenge of course, is crocs being territorial? I can move a long distance. So when you relocating, you got to relocate them a very long way. Or you send them to a croc farm or a zoo or something, something like that.

00;47;12;12 - 00;47;29;01
Unknown
But there's a lot of them. There's there's a lot of Crocs in the wild. Yeah. So the way that it kind of describe it is it's the country's almost like carrying capacity. Yeah. So the amount of crocodiles that the country can kind of sustain, it's almost that kind of capacity. But you just say you just need to be aware of it.

00;47;29;01 - 00;47;56;26
Unknown
Don't go swimming. Yeah, that's the problem. There is beautiful beaches up there. Like stunning. Yeah. The water is beautiful. It feels nice. And there's crocs in them. Yeah. Like, and that's and sharks. And so yes, I don't think anyone's really complaining that, you know, you gotta take care of them sometimes, but yeah, it's probably, you know, animal, wild animal management and cultivation practices are probably the same as any other, you know, environmental management practices.

00;47;56;26 - 00;48;18;26
Unknown
There are those who think that it doesn't need to be done. And then there's the majority of the rest of us that think balance is important. You know, you need you need, it's like I think one of the good examples and I've gone way off off tangent here is, you know, in Africa, how will allow permits for hunting the big old male giraffes because they're extremely dangerous to young giraffes and so they make a bit of an industry on that.

00;48;18;26 - 00;48;44;04
Unknown
But it's required for the overall health of the herd. You know, there are those I don't know enough about it to know. You're probably more of the croc expert than I am. But, my my wife looks after the, Crocodilian Farmers Association internationally. And so, she's right across all this sort of stuff and sustainability practices and all those kinds of things, how they look after the crocodiles and manage it and, you know, get all those things right for the for the brands and those kinds of things.

00;48;44;04 - 00;49;16;06
Unknown
So, it's a really, sustainable industry because it, they have the crocodiles have been protected. They've, they've built the right regulations around that management. They've got, you know, money getting invested into research and all those kinds of things. And I think this is another good signal of like, when the territory, is developing an industry, they're working out how to do it right, how to do it in a sustainable kind of way, and how to really make sure that you know, where we're valuing all those different aspects, that come with an industry.

00;49;16;06 - 00;49;30;14
Unknown
It's not just sort of get out there, get as many crocodiles as you can, or get out there and get as much gas as you can. And it doesn't really matter. It's not a how do we do this sustainably and effectively and those sorts of things for, for longevity and all that kind of stuff. And so I think the message is we've done it repeatedly.

00;49;30;14 - 00;49;52;08
Unknown
Absolutely. And how we move and adjust and flex the rules and practices according to the technology, according to where that particular resources are at that particular time. I think we can demonstrate and have demonstrated as a jurisdiction. We're good at that. And, you know, our industry likes the flexibility and likes to be able to, you know, maneuver with government so long as the right signals are there.

00;49;52;08 - 00;50;12;24
Unknown
It's not moving the goalposts. It's, hey, we're thinking about doing this. What do you think? As an industry, you know, what do you think is stakeholder? And we'll start to move. You make the changes and adjustments as we think we need to. Yeah. Let's wrap things up with, I mean, I still wanted to talk about the big picture of the NT in general when it comes to, you know, the growth to expect.

00;50;12;24 - 00;50;31;28
Unknown
So the state is twice the size of Texas, and there is only, a quarter million people in it. And for reference, Texas has over 30 million people, and Darwin's all the way on the top. So you start driving down and it just becomes more and more rural, more into the bush, as you like to say, are the outback more commonly for us?

00;50;32;01 - 00;51;01;02
Unknown
And I've been to some of these towns and they are like, I mean, there are towns, there's homes and schools, but there are dirt roads. It is like extremely undeveloped. And speaking of, you know, the undeveloped there. I mean, like I said, there was a highway that all that that is only recently built and, the one that's going like east west is still being built right, going towards in the base and even help all this stuff be traveled on wheels, like what is, how has that been going and what what is the future of that?

00;51;01;02 - 00;51;24;17
Unknown
I mean, Darwin will hopefully not be the only city, you know, city, city in the Northern Territory in a decade, right. Like, what kind of growth are we seeing because of this gas? Yeah. And I think really the it's the, the tension between the ultimate scale of what this can get to and where it is right now, and how do you make decisions around that development and build out that infrastructure in a effective way?

00;51;24;17 - 00;51;45;08
Unknown
And so no one wants to duplicate roads and, and, and, putting all this infrastructure and then there's a delay in the industry for whatever reason. And it's, you know, it's sitting there kind of doing nothing, because that that investment is getting diverted from other, other, other areas of, of where they could invest that money. And so I think that's kind of the tension at the moment.

00;51;45;12 - 00;52;09;27
Unknown
Government's doing a lot of work at the moment around how to set up logistics points and all those sorts of things. Probably the the likely case is your rail everything down into the, into the basin and then set up a real big logistics precinct in which to then send everything out onto the into the field from, from there, you've got to remember that these, Permian area is, huge.

00;52;09;29 - 00;52;29;13
Unknown
And so once you get onto the permit area, you know, you need to kind of drive down the road in the same way that you might in Midland or somewhere like that is completely different. You're on, on the big pastoral station on the big, you know, ranches, on the big ranches station. And so then you're building different kind of roads and those sorts of things to be able to hold your equipment around and, and those sorts of things.

00;52;29;13 - 00;52;46;26
Unknown
And so I think, as we see, you know, the larger players start to make those signals that they're coming in and they're looking at building out LNG facilities. And we all know that it's then getting to sort of a couple of hundred wells a year and all sorts of things. We'll start to see this. The rest of this kind of infrastructure really get built out.

00;52;46;28 - 00;53;06;04
Unknown
But at the moment, government's definitely doing all that early planning, all that sort of stuff. The clearing corridors and those sorts of things have pipelines at the moment and they're talking to landowners around, how they can get the, you know, the rights to be able to put those pipelines in and all those sorts of things. So they're doing that early de-risking kind of work that, is really important at the moment.

00;53;06;06 - 00;53;26;00
Unknown
Yeah. And all the, you know, we brought it up earlier, the traditional owners, these native Aboriginal people, they're all living and a lot of them are in the Northern Territory. I remember from, my research, it was a quarter of the population is Aboriginal. While compared to other states it's like 2%, 3% whatever. Right. So this is all super hopeful for them.

00;53;26;00 - 00;53;59;07
Unknown
I mean, I mean, what is the vibe there? They excited. There's jobs, there's money, there's growth. Like is it all. It's a it's a mixed bag. The people that are probably the most proximate and within the basin tend are the most excited. Because they generally getting the most education from the operators around. What what to expect, what kind of jobs and economic businesses, what sort of micro business opportunities there's going to be some of the other areas, they might be a little bit more circumspect because they're not getting as much information because they don't necessarily have a direct connection to it.

00;53;59;10 - 00;54;22;14
Unknown
But what I can tell you, one of the one of our clients that we work with is, is a not for profit that works on Aboriginal economic empowerment, and, and job creation and training. And we work really closely with a lot of the operators in the service providers. And all they all they want from us is how can we provide jobs and training and services for people coming into the basin.

00;54;22;14 - 00;54;47;12
Unknown
And so, you know, where we're lining up with, with these, not with our not for profit small portion and how we can help really bring a lot of these people out of poverty, which is, you know, where a lot of them live. Remote communities are extremely expensive and difficult to service as a government, to put, you know, health services there, to put police services there, to put basic infrastructure there costs a lot of money far beyond what the Northern Territory is able to generate on its own right now.

00;54;47;15 - 00;55;08;09
Unknown
And that's the other step to this is, you know, when when the Northern Territory's able to generate more own sets, her own source, revenue from the industries like this, you can provide better services throughout the Northern Territory. It's not just not just focused on the base. And so there there is this trepidation from some, but I'd say a lot of the ones that are going to be most immediately impacted, generally pretty excited.

00;55;08;11 - 00;55;43;26
Unknown
And both, I think both the, the two companies that are out there, timber and, and Beetaloo Energy Australia, former Empire Energy, have both had a huge amount of work with those with those groups. And so, if you have a look at, at some of, Empire Energy Beetaloo Energy Australia's Clipse, when you know, they're making announcements and allies sorts of things, you've got conversations with the traditional owners talking about how when that once they started to understand what was going on and how it all worked and, and those sorts of things in the role that they play in, in the development of that field, you know, that you can

00;55;43;26 - 00;55;59;18
Unknown
see that they're excited about what it's going to bring for their community. When the when the update to their, section 19 got signed with Alex, they all got up to hug him one by one with with, you know, Alex Underwood. Yep. They're all hugging him one by one. Once they were able to get the deal for the beneficiary, which was beautiful to see.

00;55;59;18 - 00;56;21;00
Unknown
You know, I saw I saw myself going down there with Brian Sheffield and there was stuff that we couldn't even record because it was just an intimate one on one setting with, with the people down there. Yeah, absolutely. It's it's going to be hugely transformative for them. For, for the, for the trees and the operators are going to be really passionate about playing a big part of that.

00;56;21;02 - 00;56;39;01
Unknown
And it's an easy thing to then get up to where it can be motivated about. It's like, and I think this is the exciting thing the more we get us technology kind of out in the basin, and the more companies that are involved in that, the more opportunity there is to kind of really make a difference in in the work that you do and, and really have an impact for people.

00;56;39;03 - 00;56;57;12
Unknown
It kind of, you know, Chris Wright's, whole philosophy around, bringing more and more energy online to help people, you know, be lifted out of poverty. And the benefits that come from energy in, in your, in your society is, is huge. And we get to play a really great role as part of that. Yeah. So why do we do what we do.

00;56;57;12 - 00;57;16;09
Unknown
You know, we were in government and now we're out doing doing our thing. And the passion hasn't changed. It's just we can approach it from a different, different way here. But the value of energy, you know, and and just changing people's lives can't be understated. Yep. Know overstated I should say can't be overstated as a full circle moment with Chris.

00;57;16;09 - 00;57;42;01
Unknown
Right. Because he comes from liberty. And liberty is the technology in the BW helping do the drilling through the this tough rock and this new shale out there. Right. Any any opinion or correlation about that when it comes to Chris. Right. Or the tech making all this happen? Well, so I think the, the, the, the real shift that's happened in the beetaloo has been the bringing in US technology into the basin.

00;57;42;03 - 00;58;09;25
Unknown
And so, what we saw and when you can go back and have a look at the logs yourself, what we saw in the early days of the basin is, they were getting about 5% recovery of the gas in place within that, within the shale. And so when the US tech started to come in, that increased to over 20% just from those first kind of those first bits of tech like Liberty and Heitkamp and those those kinds of, companies actually being in the basin and understanding how to drill that shale.

00;58;09;27 - 00;58;34;01
Unknown
And this is a really big opportunity, I think, for us and North American technology companies is how do I get my equipment out there and get my crews out there? You guys know how to do it. You've been doing it for decades and those sorts of things. And so the opportunity to kind of bring that ad into the into the NT and really kind of make a difference in terms of, how do we maximize the amount of gas we're getting out of the ground from each well, and really drive those costs down?

00;58;34;03 - 00;59;00;14
Unknown
And then the benefits that are going to flow into the community for us and then obviously into Southeast Asia in terms of energy security, is just it's endless. And so, you know, the stuff that Chris Watts doing and he's forward thinking about, the importance of energy in terms of economic development and helping helping people uplift their lives is just it really fits neatly with the, with the philosophy of what we're trying to do in the NT as well.

00;59;00;14 - 00;59;32;20
Unknown
So, yeah, I think we're probably big fans. Yeah, it's fair to say. Cool. Well, let's wrap things up with, you know, what are y'all doing now? We're here with Vantage North Group. How did that transition from government to this, business go? Really? That's kind of the key bit of what we're sort of saying. Before when we when we started to sort out the, the gas transactions for the anti-government and, and to get those purchase agreements for those first molecules, we could really see that benefit of US tech playing a role in, in the development of the basin.

00;59;32;22 - 00;59;51;21
Unknown
The biggest risk for, for people in the US is how do I get my technology out there? Like, it's a long way. I don't understand the regulatory environment. All the things we've kind of been talking about today, I'm hearing all these, that there's all these issues and, and it's hard to do business and, and so what we really do is kind of play that trans translation role.

00;59;51;24 - 01;00;16;08
Unknown
And so it's it's not difficult. It's just different. And so we can help. What we do is help provide that on the ground, understanding that on the ground support of how to actually bring your expertise, the US expertise into into the basin and, help people see sort of, you know, the value of the opportunity through, what's likely to be probably one of the biggest shale plays, over the coming decades.

01;00;16;11 - 01;00;48;25
Unknown
It's a Western jurisdiction. So it's it's it's well known and the market's huge in terms of, you know, what Southeast Asia is going to need over the coming decades. So and so we've been out at in the US now for, for yourself almost two months and maybe little, little under six weeks, meeting with, you know, businesses that were working with investors, our past companies, and even not for profits in some of the, some of the work just to sort of talk about what we do and what, what the beetaloo is and how how it's going to progress.

01;00;48;25 - 01;01;07;07
Unknown
And as much as continuing to educate ourselves, I mean, just on this trip, there's been so much learning that we've been able to take, and we can think about how do we apply those learnings, into the basin, how do we help people in the Northern Territory and businesses in the Northern Territory also step up to be able to capture some of those opportunities?

01;01;07;07 - 01;01;27;19
Unknown
And so this has been a really good sort of journey of discovering as much as I thought. And I, I didn't think I knew a lot, but I thought I knew a bit before coming out here. I'm like, I haven't even scratched the surface of, of, of the industry and, and, it's it's really cool to be doing what we do and be able to work with the clients that we work with who believe in the beetaloo as much as we do.

01;01;27;21 - 01;01;43;09
Unknown
Well, let's hope the word continues to get out, because I'm not hearing enough about the Beetaloo. Yeah, it's been two years almost. And, you know, before they know it, it's going to be coming up and it's going to be no one's gonna be able to shut up about it. Absolutely. That's the goal, right? That's the goal. Yeah.

01;01;43;09 - 01;01;46;06
Unknown
All right. Well, guys, thanks for coming on. Thank you for my time. Thanks for sharing.