Natural gas in Australia

Due to the Soviet-Western European gas ‘deal’, there is an oversupply of natural gas in international markets at present. What this transaction did, among other things, was to start large amounts of Algerian gas moving into Europe after an interruption of almost two years; and it also informed several other potential large-scale exporters of gas that they could not expect to experience a sellers' market for natural gas in the foreseeable future. Consequently, there is an expanded supply of gas, and a downward pressure on gas pricese verywhere. Norway, for example, has expressed a willingness to sell large quantities of natural gas to the UK in the 1990s at prices that would have been unthinkable several years ago. Worldwide, natural gas reserves are increasing more rapidly than production, and the reserve-production ratio for gas is now 58 years (as compared to 33 for oil). In the USA additions to reserves failed to match production in 1984, but the principal problem in that country at present is a general oversupply of all energy sources, including electricity.