Not just oil, gas prices have spiked and that's bad for power bills, says Ian Verrender | ABC NEWS

The energy shock sparked by the Iran war has seen the price of oil jump, leading to higher petrol and diesel prices in Australia. LNG prices have also surged after Qatar shut down its entire gas export industry.
That's translated into a boon for Australia's exporters who are banking hefty windfall profits, but chief business correspondent Ian Verrender says that doesn't necessarily mean it will translate to cheaper power bills for Australian households.
There are calls for the federal government to slap a tax on those gains, because of warnings consumers are facing higher gas and electricity bills.
"Gas is hugely important because its gas prices that set the price of electricity," he says. "So if you get a big spike in gas prices, as we saw after Russia invaded Ukraine, that flows through to the price of electricity. The price of electricity was the major driver of inflation, and because we had inflation running so hot back then, we had 13 interest rate hikes."
He says Australia is one of three major producers of LNG, but the majority of production goes to export markets.
Ian Verrender responded to a claim by LNG giant Santos CEO, Kevin Gallgher, who said Australia has enough gas reserves to almost quarantine the domestic market from the global price influx.
"Santos is the company that has been draining the East Coast (of Australia) of gas. It is the company that's responsible for gas shortages on the East Coast and for the fact that Australian prices and Australian households pay more for gas here than our customers in Japan, Korea and elsewhere in Asia," Mr Verrender says.
"It's been cheaper to import, re-import Australian gas from those markets back to here. We've had a gas reservation policy enacted, it's not actually in place just yet, primarily because of Santos' actions."
#ABCBusiness

Subscribe: http://ab.co/1svxLVE

ABC NEWS provides around the clock coverage of news events as they break in Australia and abroad. It's news when you want it, from Australia's most trusted news organisation.

For more from ABC NEWS, click here: https://ab.co/2kxYCZY
Watch more ABC NEWS content ad-free on ABC iview: https://ab.co/2OB7Mk1

Go deeper on our ABC NEWS In-depth channel: https://ab.co/2lNeBn2
Like ABC NEWS on Facebook: http://facebook.com/abcnews.au
Follow ABC NEWS on Instagram: http://instagram.com/abcnews_au

Note: In most cases, our captions are auto-generated.

#ABCNEWS #ABCNEWSAustralia

Видео Not just oil, gas prices have spiked and that's bad for power bills, says Ian Verrender | ABC NEWS канала ABC News (Australia)