IT’S LOGICAL
Mermaid Marine Australia Limited’s future is now
inextricably linked to the oil and gas industry. Oil continues
to be the main attraction to explorers because of its lower
infrastructure costs, early cash flow and easier marketing,
but it is gas, which is emerging as the premier fuel.
Gas is clean, portable, in massive supply and the
environmental answer to so many of today ’s atmospheric
problems. Together with its sister product, condensate it is also
the dominant feedstock for the petrochemical industry. In
Australia . . . gas has a very, very great future.
From all sources, our country consumes or exports a modest
total of approximately one trillion cubic feet of gas each year.
Gas is found in a number of places around Australia, but over
90% of national reserves are found offshore of northwestern
Australia, where current estimates of gas in place comfortably
exceed 100 trillion cubic feet.
These reserves were effectively found as a co-product in the
search for oil, yet on today’s economics, only one trillion cubic
feet of gas with the appropriate production infrastructure in
place is estimated to be worth $A5 billion dollars.
Therefore it may be simplistic, but true, that the undiscounted
value of the gas in Australia ’s northwest, is so far worth a
staggering $500 billion dollars and rising.
Despite these mind bending numbers, existing production taps
far less than half of 1% of this huge resource each year, 
a resource which increases almost by accident, from
exceedingly modest levels of exploration for oil.
We at Mermaid recognise that these are solid and compelling
reasons to focus our attention unwaveringly on this industry,
within this region. To build the company’s seagoing assets
and strategically blessed shore bases at Dampier, Broome and
Darwin with all speed. To lift our professional expertise and
productive capability to meet what we have assessed to be an
amazing and highly exclusive opportunity.